Moscow, 5 January 2023 (dpa/MIA) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a one-and-a-half-day ceasefire in Ukraine to mark Orthodox Christmas, according to a statement issued by the Kremlin.

Putin instructed the Russian Defence Ministry to halt hostilities in the neighbouring country from midday on Friday until Sunday night, according to the statement.

Earlier on Thursday, Kiev rejected a call by Kirill, the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, for a ceasefire during this period.

“It’s a cynical trap and an element of propaganda,” presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Thursday on Twitter.

The Russian Orthodox Church acts as a “war propagandist,” he said. Podolyak accused the Moscow patriarch of calling for the genocide of Ukrainians.

Kirill called on both sides to hold a ceasefire in what he referred to as an “internal conflict.”

According to the Orthodox Church calendar followed in Ukraine and Russia, Friday is Christmas Eve and Saturday is Christmas Day.

The appeal was the first by Kirill for a halt to hostilities since the Russian invasion on February 24.

The patriarch has in the past backed the invasion as a campaign against evil, pledging absolution to Russian soldiers and saying that if they fell in the conflict their sins would be washed away.

Also on Thursday, Putin once again made recognition of Russia’s annexed territories in Ukraine a condition for negotiations with the government in Kiev.

After a telephone conversation between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Kremlin announced on Thursday: “Vladimir Putin has once again stressed Russia’s readiness for serious dialogue – on the condition that the authorities in Kiev meet the known and repeatedly made public demands and taking into account the new territorial reality.”

Putin officially annexed Ukraine’s Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhya regions in the autumn after a series of military setbacks for Moscow.

Moscow’s conditions for an end to the war against Ukraine also include Kiev’s recognition of Crimea, already annexed since 2014, as Russian, a “de-Nazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, and its non-aligned status.

Ukraine, in turn, wants the withdrawal of Russian troops from all of its territory as a precondition for negotiations.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military reported that around 80 Russian soldiers were killed or injured in the occupied town of Tokmak in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhya on Tuesday, the general staff in Kiev said.

Germany on Thursday reassured Ukraine of aid. The country will continue supply Ukraine with weapons, adapting its deliveries to the situation on the battlefield, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said while attending an economic conference in Oslo.

Referring to France’s decision on Wednesday to provide Kiev with armoured vehicles, Habeck added: “We will always adjust our deliveries to the needs of the battlefield.”