Shelling of Bakhmut Killed Civilians Despite Putin's Christmas Truce—Kyiv

The governor of the Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine has accused Russian forces of killing civilians in his region during the temporary ceasefire that Vladimir Putin had called for over the Orthodox Christmas period.

In a post on his Telegram social media channel, Pavlo Kyrylenko said Saturday that the previous day Russians had "killed two civilians," in Krasnaya Gora and in Bakhmut, the city which has been fiercely fought over for months.

He said that another seven people had been injured and there were an unknown number of injured in the Donetsk cities of Mariupol and Volnovas in the post which was titled, "Russia kills civilians!"

The Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted that a 66-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman had been killed and 13 other local residents were injured as a result of "Russia's 'Christmas shelling' in Bakhmut."

Kyiv had dismissed the calls by the Russian president for a 36-hour truce starting on January 6 over the religious holiday. Experts suggested that it was simply a move by Putin to allow his forces to regroup and portray Ukraine as being unwilling to negotiate with Russia.

However, there are numerous reports that hostilities continued anyway with Russian forces accused of striking a fire station in southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, leaving several dead and injured.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, said that there were at least four explosions which made a mockery of Putin's earlier truce call. "They talk about a ceasefire," he wrote on Telegram, according to a translation, "this is who we are at war with."

Russian attacks were reported in at least seven regions in the east and south of Ukraine over the last 24 hours, according to the Kyiv Independent. Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram Russian troops were "terrorizing" civilians in his region which is in the north-east of the country.

Putin's temporary truce order came after ceasefire calls from the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, his key ally who has been criticized for lending his religious authority to justify Russia's invasion.

However, the Russian defense ministry, which Newsweek has contacted for comment, said on Saturday that its forces had been following the ceasefire since midday Friday and that the truce would continue until midnight Saturday.

The defense ministry accused Ukrainian forces of shelling settlements and Russian settlements, saying that they had opened fire in the Zaporozhye region and in the Kherson and Krivoy Rog directions. The update said that the alleged shelling by Ukrainian forces "were suppressed by the return fire of the Russian troops."