Russian shelling undercuts Putin’s cease-fire order

Ukraine’s leaders did not sign on to the cease-fire that Russia declared unilaterally, though they did not rule it out. But they made clear that they did not trust either Russia’s motives, or that the fighting would really stop.

After the scheduled start of the lull at noon Friday, as several parts of Ukraine — particularly the city of Bakhmut — shuddered with explosions, their skepticism seemed warranted.

In his nightly video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said the government in Moscow “wants to use Christmas as a cover” to pause Ukrainian advances and reposition troops and ammunition.

“Everyone in the world knows how the Kremlin uses lulls in the war to continue the war with new force,” he added, and he addressed the Russian people directly, in Russian, speaking of those who “sent all of your people to be slaughtered” and “do not strive for peace.”

Political analysts said that with the supposed cease-fire, President Vladimir Putin was looking for propaganda advantage, both at home and abroad, portraying himself as a peacemaker and the Ukrainians as aggressors.

Military analysts said the Kremlin could use a respite to ferry fresh troops and equipment to the front and reorganize battered units.

The proposed 36-hour cease-fire was set to begin at noon local time Friday. In the hours leading up to that time, Russia’s front-line attacks showed no signs of abating.

In the city of Kherson, in southern Ukraine, Russian forces shelled a fire station Friday morning, killing at least one person, according to local officials. Russian forces have been relentlessly bombarding the area since they were forced to retreat from Kherson in November.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Services shared photographs of the aftermath of the attack, including an image of the body of a firefighter covered with a tarp, the person’s uniform visible under the covering. A number of emergency response vehicles were also damaged. Local officials said six people were killed and four others wounded in attacks in the region the previous day.

Shortly after the cease-fire was scheduled to take hold, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said a residential area had been hit in a Russian attack on the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine and that in the town of Kurakhove, in the Donetsk region, Russian shells hit apartment buildings and a hospital. A hospital employee was injured, he said. The exact timing of the strikes was unclear.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.