In view of the upcoming Orthodox Christmas, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a day and a half ceasefire in Ukraine.
Putin instructed the Russian Defense Ministry to cease hostilities in the neighboring country from Friday noon until Sunday night, according to a Kremlin statement on Thursday.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, had previously called for a ceasefire over Orthodox Christmas.
“I, Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, call on all sides involved in the internal conflict to cease fire and establish a Christmas ceasefire from January 6 at 12:00 p.m. to January 7 at 12:00 a.m. so that believers can attend mass on Christmas Eve and on the day of Christ's birth," Kirill said in an appeal.
The Eastern Churches celebrate Christmas on January 7 according to the Julian calendar.
This is Kirill's first call for a cessation of hostilities, at least temporarily, since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
Kirill is considered a close confidant of Putin and justified the war as a campaign against evil.
After the mobilization in the fall, he promised Russian soldiers absolution.
Death in this war is a kind of sacrifice with which the person "washes away all sins," he said at the time.
Most recently, he sat in a room with generals at an extended meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Kyiv rejected Kirill's call for a ceasefire between Russians and Ukrainians for Orthodox Christmas.
"It is a cynical trap and an element of propaganda," Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
The Russian Orthodox Church is also not an authority in global orthodoxy and only acts as a "war propagandist".
Podoljak accused the Moscow Patriarchate of calls for genocide against the Ukrainians.