Kiev, Ukraine – The President Vladimir Putin on Sunday he insisted he was willing to negotiate his invasion of Ukraine, an oft-repeated line that US and Ukrainian officials dismissed as verbiage as air raid sirens sent Ukrainians already jittery from months of war and bitter cold looking for shelter on christmas day.
A nationwide alert in the morning and a second one in the afternoon were lifted in about two hours and there were no immediate reports of Russian attacks in Ukraine.
But air raid alarms have added to anxiety over the country’s first Christmas since the Russian invasion, after days of warnings from authorities that Putin’s forces would unleash an attack new wave of attacks against energy infrastructure.
As Ukrainians bravely celebrated the holidays, gathering despite sirens in churches and chapels for Christmas services, Putin repeated that his war was in defense of Russia’s national interests and that Ukraine and its allies were to blame for a conflict that entered in the eleventh month .
“We are willing to negotiate with all participants in this process to achieve acceptable results, but this is your business; it’s not us who refuse negotiations, but them,” Putin told an interviewer on Russian state television.
Senior Russian officials have often said they are ready to enter negotiations – Putin said last week that his goal was “to end this war” – almost simultaneously underlining their determination to keep fighting.
US officials said Russia has given no indication of its willingness to negotiate in good faith.
On Sunday, the Ukrainians seemed intent on throwing a party normal as possible.
“Nobody canceled birthdays and nobody canceled Christmas,” said Oleh Moor, 50, a cook in Kiev.
“You can’t tell a child, ‘Wait until the war is over.’ Maybe there’s no music, maybe there’s no concert like last year, but we’re still living.”
Due to Russian attacks on infrastructure, the Ukrainian capital is mostly devoid of Christmas lights and decorations, but the authorities have installed a Christmas tree powered by a generator in a central square that continued to shine even during frequent blackouts.
On Sunday, Moro and his family passed him on their way to Christmas lunch.
Their children posed for a photo with a Santa Claus.
“We will not let the enemy know we are destroyed,” Moor said.
There have been no serious peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in months, and Ukrainian officials have said they will not negotiate until Moscow withdraws its troops.
On Sunday, Ukrainian officials were quick to dismiss Putin’s remarks, with Mykhailo Podolyak, a top presidential adviser, saying the Russian leader “needs to get back to reality”.
“Russia does not want negotiations, but tries to shirk its responsibilities,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Throughout autumn and early winter, Russian forces fired volleys of cruise missiles and dropped drones at Ukrainian cities, aiming to hit heating and energy infrastructure.
Military analysts have said it is part of a Russian strategy to plunge the country into dark and cold demoralize the population.
The shelling typically occurred at weekly intervals.
Sunday’s actions that triggered the air alert could have been Russia launching missiles or sending planes that set off false alarms.
alarms
But air raid alarms are also ominous when they sound for caution and they are not followed by actual attacks.
During alarms, Ukrainians often move to corridors, bathrooms or other areas of their homes away from windows and considered safer in the event of an attack.
Some people go to basements or quickly wrap their children in warm clothes seek refuge in a subway station.
Ukrainians in the capital also pinned their hopes on the country’s air defenses.
But in the cities closest to the front line there are no defenses that could protect against artillery fire.
Defense Minister of Ukraine Oleksii Reznikov said on Twitter on Sunday that artillery destroyed the only church in the town of Kyselivka in the southern Kherson region.
A knock-on effect of the war was a change of opinion about when Christmas should be celebrated:
now more Orthodox Ukrainians want to do it on December 25, in line with most of Europe, rather than January 7 in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar.
Over the past year, support for celebrating Christmas in December has significantly increased.
A social survey by polling agency Rating Group revealed that 44% of Ukrainians want it celebrate it in Decembercompared to 26% last year.
On Sunday, worshipers packed the small chapel of Kiev’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, one of the oldest churches in the capital, for a Christmas service.
Wrapped up in the cold, they continued their prayers, impassive, even as the morning raid alarm sounded.
In Rome, Pope Francis launched an appeal for peace in Ukraine during his Christmas address from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, asking God to “enlighten the minds of those who have the power to silence the roar of guns”. terminate immediately to this senseless war.”
The pope’s appeal came a day after Russian shelling ripped through the center of the southern city of Kherson, killing at least 10 and taking the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyto say that the holidays “this year have a bitter aftertaste for us”.
“Family table dinner can’t be that tasty and warm. There may be empty chairs around you,” she said in a Christmas Eve message.
“And our homes and streets may not be as bright. And the Christmas bells may not ring as loud and inspiring. Through air raid sirens or even worse: gunfire and explosions.”
Those sentiments were on display in Kiev, where friends and relatives of Ukrainian POWs gathered on Christmas Eve and put on a show called “Christmas in Captivity,” recreating the image of the Last Supper which included barbed wire and empty steel bowls.
“We have this opportunity to reunite with the abundant Ukrainian table, thanks to our soldiers who sacrifice their normal lives to protect us,” said Yevhen Sukharnikov, one of the organizers, whose 24-year-old son is a prisoner of war.
“They move them all the time and don’t give us any way to contact them,” Sukharnikov said.
The number of victims of months of war continues to rise.
Ukraine’s military said on Sunday that three demining experts had been killed in the Kherson region a day earlier while clearing mines and unexploded ordnance left behind by the Russian army, which withdrew from there last month.
The day after the deadly attack in the city of Kherson, a long line formed at a blood donation center on Sunday, photos shared by Ukrainian officials on social media showed.
More than 60 people were injured in the attacks, which hit a commercial area and residential buildings in one of the deadliest Russian attacks on the city in the nearly two months since it was recaptured by Ukrainian forces.
“People have come together to help their fellow citizens injured by yesterday’s Russian terrorist attack,” the Ukrainian military tweeted.
“Anger. Invincibility. Compassion. Victory.”
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.