Pushilin: Russian Armed Forces will respond to Kyiv’s provocations during the ceasefire

The Russian Armed Forces will not ignore the provocations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the period of the ceasefire, declared Acting Head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin in his Telegram channel.

“The decision concerns a ceasefire or offensive action on our part. But this does not mean that we will not respond to the provocations of the enemy! Or we will give at least some chance to the enemy during these festive hours to improve their positions on the line of contact,” he wrote.

Pushilin also added that the decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin to introduce a ceasefire at Christmas “as an Orthodox person applies precisely to Orthodox people,” but the leadership of Kyiv, he stressed, “for obvious reasons” cannot be considered Orthodox.

Putin today instructed Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu to introduce a ceasefire along the entire line of contact in the zone of the special military operation from noon on January 6 to 24:00 on January 7. The President noted that a large number of Orthodox Christians live in the areas of hostilities, and therefore called on the Ukrainian side to also declare a ceasefire and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

In Kyiv, they strongly opposed this initiative. Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, called her hypocritical on his Twitter, saying that a “temporary truce” could begin only after the withdrawal of troops. Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, also opposed the temporary ceasefire, saying that Kyiv would not comply with the ceasefire.

“No negotiations with them [с Москвой]”, – leads his words TASS.

The Russian Defense Ministry, in turn, reported that Russian troops received instructions from Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to introduce a ceasefire for 36 hours from noon on January 6 until the end of January 7.