BAKHMUT, Ukraine, Jan  6, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - Artillery exchanges pounded

war-scarred cities in eastern Ukraine on Friday despite Russian leader Vladimir
Putin unilaterally ordering his forces to pause attacks for 36 hours for the
Orthodox Christmas.

 The brief ceasefire declared by Putin earlier this week was supposed to
begin at 0900 GMT Friday and would have been the first full pause since
Moscow's invasion in February 2022.

 But AFP journalists heard both outgoing and incoming shelling in the
frontline city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after the time when the Russian
ceasefire was supposed to have begun.

 Moscow's forces also struck Kramatorsk in the east, the Ukrainian
presidential administration said, as well as the frontline town of Kurakhove
where residential buildings and a medical facility were damaged.

 Putin's order to stop fighting during the Orthodox Christmas came after
Moscow suffered its worst reported loss of life in the war and as Ukraine's
allies pledged to send armoured vehicles and a second Patriot air defence
battery to aid Kyiv.
       
       - Ceasefire 'not serious' -
    
       
 Kyrylo Tymoshenko from the Ukraine president's office earlier said that
Moscow's forces had struck a fire station in southern city of Kherson in an
attack that left several people dead or wounded.

 "They talk about a ceasefire. This is who we are at war with," he said.

 The head of Ukraine's Lugansk region meanwhile added that Russian forces
had fired 14 times on Kyiv's position in the regions and attempted to storm a
settlement held by Ukrainian forces.

 Russia's defence ministry said however it was respecting its unilateral
ceasefire and accused Ukraine's forces of continued shelling.

 Both countries celebrate Orthodox Christmas and the Russian leader's order
came following ceasefire calls from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and
Russia's spiritual leader Patriarch Kirill, a staunch Putin supporter.

 Ukraine had already dismissed the halt -- due to last until the end of
Saturday (2100 GMT) -- as a strategy by Russia to gain time to regroup its
forces and bolster its defences following a series of battlefield reversals.

The French foreign ministry described the so-called ceasefire as a "crude"
attempt by Russia to divert attention from its culpability for the war.

While the EU's most senior diplomat said Friday the ceasefire was "not
credible".

 "The Kremlin totally lacks credibility and this declaration of a unilateral
ceasefire is not credible," European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell
said during a visit to Morocco.

 Since the invasion began on February 24 last year, Russia has occupied
parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, but Kyiv has reclaimed swathes of its
territory and this week claimed a New Year's strike that killed scores of
Moscow's troops.

The Kremlin said Thursday that during a telephone conversation with
Erdogan, Putin had told the Turkish leader Moscow was ready for dialogue if
Kyiv recognises "new territorial realities".

 He was referring to Russia's claim to have annexed four regions of Ukraine,
including Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions -- despite not
fully controlling them.

In Bakhmut, located in the Donetsk region, dozens of civilians gathered at
a building used as a base for disbursing humanitarian aid, where volunteers
organised a Christmas Eve celebration less than an hour after the ceasefire was
to go into effect, handing out mandarins, apples and cookies.

 The streets of the largely bombed-out city were mostly empty save for
military vehicles. Shelling was lighter on Friday than it had been in recent
days.

 Pavlo Diachenko, a police officer in Bakhmut, said he doubted the ceasefire
would mean much to the city's civilians even if it had been respected.

"What can a church holiday mean for them? They are shelling every day and
night and almost every day there are people killed," he said.

 Kirill, 76, made his ceasefire appeal "so that Orthodox people can attend
services on Christmas Eve and on the day of the Nativity of Christ", he said on
the church's official website Thursday.

 But there was widespread scepticism in the streets of Kyiv to the gesture.

 "You can never trust them, never... Whatever they promise, they don't
deliver," said Olena Fedorenko, a 46-year-old from the war-torn city of
Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.
       
       - More arms for Ukraine -
       
 Far from the frontline, Moscow resident Tatyana Zakharova said she was not
in a festive mood on the eve of Orthodox Christmas because her brother was
fighting in Ukraine.

"Of course, we will go to church... we will pray first of all for my
brother, our boys," the 35-year-old told AFP.

 News of Putin's ceasefire order came as Germany and the United States
pledged to provide additional military aid for Kyiv, with US President Joe
Biden saying the promised equipment comes at a "critical point" in the war.

Washington and Berlin said in a joint statement that they will respectively
provide Kyiv with Bradley and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

Putin's ceasefire order came a day after Moscow lifted its reported toll in
its worst single reported loss from a Ukrainian strike to 89 dead.