Russian shelling in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region killed at least four people on Sunday, including an 87-year-old man and his 81-year-old wife who died after a strike on their apartment building, as the country prepared to officially celebrate Christmas for the first time on Dec. 25.
The barrage injured nine other people, including a 15-year-old, sparked fires in homes and at a private medical facility, and set a local gas pipeline alight, Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Reuters reported that five people were killed, while the Ukrainian military yesterday said that Russia launched 31 drones and two missile attacks overnight, mostly targeting the south.
Photo: Reuters
“There are no holidays for the enemy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media, commenting on the Kherson attack. “They do not exist for us as long as the enemy kills our people and remains on our land.”
The shelling across Kherson reached the center of the region’s capital city of the same name. The assault took place as Ukraine prepared to officially celebrate Christmas for the first time on Dec. 25, having previously marked the date on Jan. 7.
Some Orthodox Ukrainians observed Christmas on Dec. 25 last year in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. The Russian Orthodox Church observes the birth of Jesus on Jan. 7.
The cathedral in the Monastery of the Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kyiv, held its Christmas celebration on Jan. 7 of this year, but the service was held in the Ukrainian language for the first time in the 31 years of Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union.
Zelenskiy signed legislation in July moving the public Christmas Day holiday to Dec. 25, although one of the country’s two competing Orthodox church organization’s is sticking with the January date dictated by the Julian calendar.
To mark Christmas Eve on Dec. 24, Zelenskiy addressed the nation in a video filmed in front of the floodlit St. Sophia Cathedral in central Kyiv.
“All Ukrainians are together,” he said. “We all celebrate Christmas together — on the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united country.”
He reassured Ukrainians fighting against Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country that “step by step, day by day, the darkness is losing.”
“Today, this is our common goal, our common dream, and this is precisely what our common prayer is for today. For our freedom. For our victory. For our Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said.
In the southern Black Sea port of Odesa, churchgoers prayed and lit candles as priests in gold vestments held Christmas Eve service in the Cathedral of the Nativity, decorated with fir trees and a nativity scene.
“We believe that we really should celebrate Christmas with the whole world, far away, far away from Moscow. For me that’s the new message now,” said one smiling parishioner, Olena, whose son is a medic on the front line.
“We really want to celebrate in a new way. This is a holiday with the whole of Ukraine, with our independent Ukraine. This is very important for us,” she said.
Additional reporting by Reuters and AFP
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
RSS