Kyiv, Jan 5 (AP) The head of the Russian Orthodox Church called on Thursday for a 36-hour Christmas cease-fire in Ukraine at the end of this week, but his appeal looked unlikely to bring any breakthrough in halting the war that began last February with Russia's invasion.

Moscow Patriarch Kirill suggested a truce from noon Friday through midnight Saturday, local time.

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The Russian Orthodox Church, which uses the ancient Julian calendar, celebrates Christmas on January 7. That is 13 days later than in the Gregorian calendar.

The proposal got short shrift from Kyiv officials, with Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak dismissing it as “a cynical trap and an element of propaganda.”

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Kirill has previously justified Russia's war in Ukraine as part of a “metaphysical struggle” to prevent a liberal ideological encroachment from the West.

Moscow officials made no immediate comment on Kirill's overture. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Turkey's president on Thursday and the Kremlin said afterward that Putin “reaffirmed Russia's openness to a serious dialogue” with Ukrainian authorities.

But that professed readiness came with the usual strings attached: that “Kyiv authorities fulfill the well-known and repeatedly stated demands and recognise new territorial realities,” the Kremlin said in a reference to Moscow's demand that Ukraine recognize Crimea as part of Russia and acknowledge other illegal territorial gains.

Previous attempts at brokering peace talks have fallen at that hurdle, as Ukraine demands that at the very least Russia withdraws from occupied areas.

Elsewhere, the head of NATO said he detected no change in Moscow's stance on Ukraine, insisting that the Kremlin “wants a Europe where they can control a neighboring country.”

“We have no indications that President Putin has changed his plans, his goals for Ukraine,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech in Oslo.

The fighting in Ukraine has increasingly become a war of attrition in recent weeks, as winter sets in.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said on Thursday that at least five civilians were killed and eight wounded across the country by Russian shelling over the previous 24 hours.

The ongoing intense battle for Bakhmut has left 60 per cent of the city in ruins, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said in televised remarks on Thursday.

He said that the Ukrainian defenders were still holding the Russians back, but the Kremlin's forces have pummeled the city with relentless shelling.

Bakhmut is a city in the eastern Donbas, an expansive industrial region bordering Russia.

Taking Bakhmut would not only offer Putin a major battlefield gain after months of setbacks, it would also rupture Ukraine's supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.

Russia has battered Bakhmut for months. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)