Ukraine marks Christmas on December 25th for the first time, a symbolic rejection of Russia

Ukraine’s Orthodox Christians have marked Christmas Day on December 25th for the first time. In July, the government changed the date of Orthodox Christmas from January 7th to December 25th, in a symbolic shift away from the Russian Orthodox church.

“Evil will be defeated,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Christmas Eve address to the nation. “Today, all Ukrainians are together,” the president said in his nightly address. “We all meet Christmas together. On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united country. And today our common prayer will be stronger than ever … And it will resonate today without a time difference of two weeks. Resonate together with Europe and the world.”

Fighting continued on Christmas Eve. Russian attacks on southern Ukraine’s Kherson region killed five civilians on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, while Russian-installed officials in the eastern town of Horlivka said one person had been killed as a result of Kyiv’s shelling.

Russian forces abandoned the city of Kherson, the administrative centre of the Kherson region on the Dnipro river in southern Ukraine, and the western bank of the river more than a year ago but have since subjected many areas there to shelling from their positions on the eastern bank.

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The deaths in Kherson occurred in continuing Russian shelling of the city and the region over the preceding 24 hours, Ukrainian officials said.

Regional police said three people died in shelling of an apartment building and a private home in Kherson city. A woman died in a drone attack in a small town south of Kherson and a second woman was killed when a town further north came under heavy fire.

Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, head of the press office of Kherson’s regional military administration, told the Ukrainian public broadcaster that gas and water supplies were partially cut off due to the attacks, which also hit a medical facility.

“The windows were broken, the building was damaged,” Tolokonnikov said.

[ Vast majority of Ukrainians back head of armed forces despite frictions with Zelenskiy ]

Some 600km (400 miles) northeast of Kherson in the town of Horlivka, in areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk region under Russian control, Ukraine’s shelling destroyed a shopping centre and several other buildings, a Russian-installed official said.

The attacks killed one woman and wounded six civilians, the Russian-installed mayor of Horlivka, Ivan Prikhodko, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Reuters could not independently verify the Russian and Ukrainian reports. Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched on Ukraine in February 2022. – Reuters, Guardian

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