The Riverside Press-Enterprise
RUSSIA Putin insists he is open to talks as air-raids sound across Ukraine
KYIV, UKRAINE >> President Vladimir Putin insisted Sunday that he was willing to negotiate over his invasion of Ukraine, an oft-repeated line that U.S. and Ukrainian officials have dismissed as lip service, as air-raid sirens sent Ukrainians already on edge from months of war and bitter cold to seek shelter on Christmas Day.
One nationwide alert in the morning and a second in the afternoon were lifted within about two hours, and there were no immediate reports of Russian strikes landing in Ukraine. But the air-raid warnings added to the anxiety of the country’s first Christmas since Russia’s invasion, after days of warnings from officials that Putin’s forces would unleash a new wave of strikes targeting energy infrastructure.
As Ukrainians marked the holiday with resilience, gathering despite the sirens in churches and chapels for Christmas services, Putin repeated the claim that his war was in defense of Russia’s national interests and that Ukraine and its allies were to blame for a conflict that has entered its 11th month.
“We are ready to negotiate with all the participants in this process about some acceptable outcomes, but this is their business — it’s not we who refuse negotiations but they,” Putin told an interviewer on state television in Russia.
Top Russian officials have frequently said that they are prepared to enter negotiations — Putin said last week that his goal was “to end this war” — while emphasizing almost in the same breath a determination to keep fighting. U.S. officials have said that Russia has offered no indications that it is prepared to negotiate in good faith.
On Sunday, Ukrainians appeared determined to celebrate as ordinary a holiday as possible.
“Nobody canceled birthdays, and nobody canceled Christmas,” said Oleh Moor, 50, a cook in Kyiv. “You cannot tell a child, ‘Wait until the war is over.’ Maybe there is no music, maybe there are no concerts like last year, but we continue living.”
Because of Russian strikes on infrastructure, the Ukrainian capital is mostly devoid of holiday lights and decorations, but authorities did set up a generator-powered Christmas tree on a central square that has continued to shine even during the frequent blackouts.
There have been no serious peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in months, and Ukrainian officials have said that they will not negotiate until Moscow withdraws its troops. On Sunday, Ukrainian officials were quick to dismiss Putin’s remarks, with Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, saying that the Russian leader “needs to come back to reality.”
“Russia doesn’t want negotiations but tries to avoid responsibility,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
Through the fall and start of winter, Russian forces have fired volleys of cruise missiles and launched drones at Ukrainian cities, aimed at energy and heating infrastructure. Military analysts have said it is part of a Russian strategy of plunging the country into darkness and cold to demoralize the population.
The bombardments have typically come at intervals of about a week. The actions Sunday that touched off the air alert could have been either Russia firing missiles or sending planes that set off false alarms.
But the air-raid alarms are disruptive even when sounded as a precaution and no actual strikes follow.
One ripple effect of the war has been a shift in views of when Christmas should be celebrated, with more Orthodox Ukrainians now saying they want to do so on Dec. 25, in line with most of Europe, rather than on the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar date of Jan. 7. Over the past year, support for celebrating Christmas in December has risen sharply. A social survey by Rating Group, a polling agency, showed 44% of Ukrainians want to celebrate in December, up from 26% of those polled last year.