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The Kremlin on Thursday announced a 36-hour cease-fire in Ukraine to mark the Eastern Orthodox Christmas, which would be the broadest truce by far since Russia invaded in February. But Ukraine’s leaders dismissed the idea as cynical posturing by a ruthless and untrustworthy enemy. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the cease-fire, from noon Friday until midnight Saturday, the Kremlin and the Defense Ministry said in separate statements. “Given that a large number of citizens practicing Orthodoxy resides in the areas of hostilities, we call on the Ukrainian side to announce a cease-fire and give them an opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and the day of Christ’s birth,” the Kremlin said. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine responded with derision in his nightly video message, though he did not explicitly rule out the idea. After switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian to address the Russian people directly, he spoke of those who “sent all of your people to be slaughtered” and “do not strive for peace.” “Now they want to use Christmas as a cover” to pause Ukrainian advances “and bring equipment, ammunition and mobilized troops closer to our positions,” he said. “Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses lulls in the war to continue the war with new force,” he added.

Politicians inside Russia have said commanders should be punished for failing to protect their soldiers in a devastating New Year's Himars attack as anger grows over one of the deadliest single strikes of the war. Nationalists in the Russian parliament and regional governments are calling for criminal prosecutions for treason after dozens of mobilised men were killed in a massive Ukrainian missile strike on a military base in Russia-held eastern Ukraine. A vocational school in Donetsk’s suburb of Makiivka that reportedly housed several hundred Russian troops was flattened, leading to a rare admission of heavy losses by the Kremlin. The attack attracted the ire of Russia’s pro-war nationalist politicians and bloggers who blamed the military for placing hundreds of troops in one place well within the range of the US-made Himars multiple-rocket missile systems.