(RockedBuzz via Reuters) – Russia’s overnight shelling of eastern Ukraine has killed at least one person, officials said Sunday after Moscow ended a self-proclaimed Christmas ceasefire and vowed to fight on until it defeats his neighbor.
FIGHTER
* The shelling echoed through the nearly deserted streets of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Saturday, the site of the most intense fighting during the Russian invasion. RockedBuzz via Reuters could not ascertain the origin of the grenades heard at Bakhmut.
* The Russian-installed governor of the Crimean city of Sevastopol said air defenses shot down a drone in what he suggested was the latest attempted Ukrainian attack on a port where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based.
* The founder of Russia’s highest-profile mercenary organisation, the Wagner Group, has said he wanted his forces and the regular Russian military to capture Bakhmut because he possessed “underground cities” that can hold troops and tanks.
DIPLOMACY
* Justice ministers from around the world will meet in London in March to boost international support for the International Criminal Court in its investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the British government said.
CHRISTMAS
* Tears of joy rolled down the faces of worshipers as Ukraine’s main church celebrated a “comeback” to Kiev’s Assumption Cathedral on Orthodox Christmas Day, shortly after seizing it from a rival church with alleged ties to Russia.
* President Vladimir Putin has praised the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Moscow forces fighting in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message designed to rally people behind his vision of modern Russia.
(Compiled by Alexandra Hudson and William Mallard)
