From ‘Christmas ceasefire’ to ‘retaliatory operation’ Fighting continued in Ukraine through a 36-hour ceasefire unilaterally declared by Russia and ended in renewed strikes

The “ceasefire” in Ukraine, which Russian authorities unilaterally announced for Russian Orthodox Christmas, concluded on January 8, just after midnight. Ukrainian authorities said that Russia wasted no time, after the “ceasefire” concluded, in launching attacks on the Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Donetsk regions.

At 10:00pm local time (11:00pm in Moscow) on January 7, the city of Zaporizhzhia took artillery fire for about half an hour, says the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office. One of the city’s districts was shelled by cluster munitions. Both civilian and critical infrastructure were damaged, as well as some residents’ cars. Vladimir Rogov, a representative of the collaborationist group We Are Together With Russia, claims that the strikes aimed at Ukrainian military targets.

Around 11:00pm local time (midnight in Moscow), says the Prosecutor General, the Russian military launched rockets at the city of Merefa, near Kharkiv, from Russia’s Belgorod region. “A business was damaged, one man was killed, and another civilian was injured” the prosecutor’s office reported.

After midnight, in the early hours of January 8, Russian troops launched seven rocket strikes on Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, reported Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration. He said an educational institution and an industrial facility were damaged in those attacks, but that, according to preliminary reports, there were no casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry called the strike on Kramatorsk a “retaliatory operation” for Ukrainian Armed Forces’ New Year’s strike on a Russian base in Makiivka, an incident which killed, according to the Russian side, 89 soldiers. The Ministry announced that Russian Armed Forces had hit two barracks in Kramatorsk, which held more than 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers. The Russian side claims the strike killed over 600 people. Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian army, said that the Russian Defense Ministry’s information isn’t true.

Ukraine claims that Russia continued shelling when the “ceasefire” was in effect. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed forces says that Russia launched a missile strike and 20 heavy artillery attacks on January 6, and nine missile strikes, two air strikes, and 40 artillery attacks, including on civilian infrastructure, on January 7. The Ukrainian General Staff added that the attacks resulted in deaths and injuries.

Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, claims that on January 7, the Russian military shelled the area around a UN mission which was bringing humanitarian aid to the city of Orikhiv. There is currently no information about casualties. On January 6, Orthodox Christmas Eve, DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, reported a Russian attack on a thermal power plant. The company didn’t specify which plant, but mentioned that it had been shelled before.

The Pentagon announced that Russia continued combat activities despite the “Christmas ceasefire.” Laura Cooper, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, said at a January 6 briefing, “In terms of the statement by Mr. Putin about the ceasefire, I can tell you we see fighting in Ukraine today, even though technically we’re in the ceasefire window.” She advised taking Putin’s announcement of a temporary ceasefire with a grain of salt: “This is the same man who said he would not invade Ukraine.”

On January 6 and 7, while the “ceasefire” was in effect, five Ukrainian civilians were killed and more than 20 were wounded, say local authorities. Regional administrations say that on January 6, in the Donetsk and Kherson regions, three people were killed and another 14 injured. The majority of the casualties from January 6 were in Donetsk, where artillery fire in Bakhmut killed two people and injured another 13, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General. On January 7, across Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions, two civilians were killed and nine wounded, according to presidential adviser Kyrylo Tymoshenko. 

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the Russian military was observing the “ceasefire” but was also returning Ukrainian fire. On January 7, Igor Konashenkov, official spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that Russian troops were observing “a ceasefire along the entire line of contact,” but that the Ukrainian side continued shooting. He added that Russian troops used “return fire” to suppress all positions from which Ukrainian Armed Forces were shelling.

On January 8, Konashenkov announced that during the “ceasefire,” which was declared unilaterally by Russia, Ukraine had carried out more than 500 artillery and rocket attacks along the frontline. 

In times of war it is impossible to immediately verify information disseminated even by official representatives of parties to the conflict.