Ukraine has dismissed as a trick a unilateral order by Russia for a 36-hour Christmas ceasefire, as US and German leaders say they are sending armoured fighting vehicles in a boost for the Kyiv government.
The US weapons package, to be announced on Friday, is expected to include about 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles as part of security assistance totalling about $US2.8 billion ($A4.1 billion), US officials say.
“Right now the war in Ukraine is at a critical point,” US President Joe Biden told reporters on Friday. “We have to do everything we can to help the Ukrainians resist Russian aggression.”
Germany would provide Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, according to a joint statement on Thursday from Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Both countries agreed to train Ukrainian soldiers on how to use them, it said. Germany would also supply a Patriot air defence battery to Ukraine, which has scored some battlefield successes since Russian forces invaded last February but has asked allies for heavier weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected out of hand a Russian order for a truce over Russian Orthodox Christmas starting at noon on Friday and ending at midnight on Saturday. He said it was a trick to halt the progress of Ukraine’s forces in the eastern Donbas region and bring in more of Moscow’s forces.
“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.
“What will that give them? Only yet another increase in their total losses.”
Biden suggested Putin’s ceasefire offer was a sign of desperation. “I think he’s trying to find some oxygen,” he told reporters at the White House.
Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, responded on Facebook saying: “Washington is set on fighting with us ‘to the last Ukrainian’.”
On the decision to send armoured vehicles, he urged Washington to consider the “possible consequences of such a dangerous course”.
Russia’s Orthodox Church observes Christmas on January 7. Ukraine’s main Orthodox Church has been recognised as independent by the church hierarchy since 2019 and rejects any notion of allegiance to the Moscow patriarch. Many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on December 25 as in the West.
Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant “ending your country’s aggression … And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out.”
Dmitry Polyansky, head of Russia’s permanent mission to the United Nations, wrote on Twitter that Ukraine’s reaction was “one more reminder with whom we are fighting in Ukraine – ruthless nationalist criminals who … have no respect for sacred things”.
In a phone call with Zelenskiy on Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his government was ready to take on mediation and moderation duties to secure a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Putin told Erdogan separately on Thursday that Russia was open to dialogue over Ukraine but that Kyiv would have to accept the loss of territories claimed by Russia, the Kremlin said.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, at an event in Lisbon, said he believed the warring sides were “far from a moment in which a serious peace negotiation is possible”.
The war, described by Putin as a “special military operation” to protect his country’s security, has displaced millions, killed thousands of civilians and left Ukrainian cities, towns and villages in ruins.
By Pavel Polityuk and Herbert Villarraga in KYIV
