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 US State Department said the Russian strikes prove the ceasefire was a “cynical” ploy, while the French foreign ministry described it as a “crude” attempt by Moscow to divert attention from its culpability for the war.
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 Feb 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.
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.
Â
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.
Â
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.
Â
“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.
Â
There was also widespread scepticism of the ceasefire in the streets of Kyiv.
Â
“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.
