On December 11, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, as one of the last things he would do at the end of his term as the European Union's rotating president, said he had proposed a Christmas truce between Ukraine and Russia. "At the end of the Hungarian EU presidency, we made new efforts for peace. We proposed a Christmas ceasefire and a large-scale prisoner exchange," he said. Sadly, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "clearly rejected and ruled out" the idea.

There is a history of a Christmas truce, and there is a history of civilian and military leaders rejecting it.

On Christmas morning of 1914, a truce spread across multiple regions along the hundreds of miles western front. The truce broke out spontaneously and was not officially sanctioned. Pope Benedict XV had proposed a Christmas truce, pleading "that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang." Officials on both sides rejected his plea.