Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy dismisses Russian ceasefire, saying war will end ‘when your soldiers leave’

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The UK government’s ministry of defence has posted its latest defence intelligence update on Ukraine:

Militias from the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics were formally integrated into the Russian army on 31 December.

Russia claims that these regions are intrinsic parts of the Russian Federation following the fixed accession referenda of September 2022. However the briefing says they have been discreetly controlled since 2014.

Their status remains divisive within Russia, where the territories are perceived by some as a drain on finances, as well as carrying a diplomatic and political cost.

A close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, according to a White House official.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is the founder of Russia’s most powerful mercenary force, the Wagner Group. Wagner has played a key role in the Russian offensive against Bakhmut.

There were indications that monetary motives were driving Russia’s and Prigozhin’s “obsession” with Bakhmut, the US official said.

The United States has previously accused Russian mercenaries of exploiting natural resources in Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and elsewhere to help fund Moscow’s war in Ukraine – a charge Russia rejected as “anti-Russian rage”:

In Washington, US President Joe Biden, the state department and the Pentagon greeted Putin’s order with scepticism. Biden said he thought the Russian president was “trying to find some oxygen”.

Ukraine has scored some battlefield successes in the past few months although Russia has kept up a barrage of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy plants, knocking out power to millions of people at times in the middle of winter. Russia has denied targeting civilians since its invasion began on 24 February but the strikes included Christmas Day and new year’s attacks on civilian infrastructure, according to Kyiv.

“There’s one word that best described that and it’s ‘cynical’,” US state department spokesperson Ned Price said in a press briefing of Putin’s ceasefire order.

“Our concern … is that the Russians would seek to use any temporary pause in fighting to rest, to refit, to regroup, and ultimately to re-attack,” Price said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected out of hand a Russian order for a truce over Russian Orthodox Christmas starting at noon on Friday and ending at midnight on Saturday. He said it was a trick to halt the progress of Ukraine’s forces in the eastern Donbas region and bring in more reinforcements.

“They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.

“What will that give them? Only yet another increase in their total losses.”

Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant “ending your country’s aggression … And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out.”

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.

Our top story this morning: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has dismissed a unilateral order by Russia for a 36-hour ceasefire starting on Friday, saying it was a trick to halt the progress of Ukraine’s troops in the eastern Donbas region in order for Moscow to bring in more of their own forces.

Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant “ending your country’s aggression … And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out.”

Here are the other key recent developments:

The US state department expressed skepticism over Putin’s announced ceasefire, describing it as “cynical” given Moscow’s New Year’s Day attack on Ukraine and saying the US had “little faith” in the announcement’s intentions.

Putin’s announcement came hours after the head of the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill, called for a ceasefire and a Christmas truce in Ukraine. In a statement, Kirill said he appealed to “all parties involved in the internecine conflict” for the ceasefire, so that “Orthodox people can attend services on Christmas Eve and the day of the Nativity of Christ”.

Germany will join the US in supplying an additional Patriot air defence battery to Ukraine, the White House has announced, after the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the US president, Joe Biden, spoke by phone. The two leaders “expressed their common determination to continue to provide the necessary financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine for as long as needed”, the White House said in a statement.

The US believes that Vladimir Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum mines near the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, a White House official said on Thursday. There were indications that monetary motives were driving Russia’s and Prigozhin’s “obsession” with Bakhmut, the official added. Prigozhin is the owner of private Russian military company Wagner Group.

Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, said Germany providing weapons to Ukraine was a “good decision” during a Thursday briefing. Habeck’s department has to approve weapons exports.