News Feed

Ukraine's deputy PM warns of Russians planning to attack churches during Christmas service

1 min read

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged people living on the territories occupied by Russia to abstain from attending church services and crowded places during the Orthodox Christmas celebrations.

The Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7 remains the main celebration date for most believers, although Ukraine has made the Western Christmas on Dec. 25 an official holiday as well.

“Ukraine has received information that Russians are preparing terrorist attacks in churches,” Vereshchuk wrote on Facebook.

A Ukrainian OSINT group InformNapalm also reported getting tip-offs about supposed attacks in churches in occupied territories, meant to frame Ukraine as an aggressor and motivate potential conscripts in Russia to join the army.

On Jan. 5, Russian media reported that President Vladimir Putin ordered to implement a 36-hour ceasefire on Jan. 6-7, on the occasion of the Orthodox Christmas. Ukraine and its allies have dismissed the report as a lie and an attempt to win time.

In the early afternoon of Jan. 6, during the supposed "truce," the air raid alarms went off across Ukraine following a reported take-off of missile carrying jets in Belarus. Shortly before, the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk Oblast was hit with two missiles. The city of Kherson was shelled in the morning of Jan. 6, and at least one person was killed.

Avatar
The Kyiv Independent news desk

We are the news team of the Kyiv Independent. We are here to make sure our readers get quick, essential updates about the events in Ukraine. Feel free to contact us via email with feedback and news alerts.

Read more
News Feed

U.S. President Donald Trump's remarks come after the Financial Times (FT) reported, citing undisclosed sources, that he asked President Volodymyr Zelensky whether Kyiv could strike Moscow or St Petersburg if provided with long-range U.S. weapons.

"The stolen data includes confidential questionnaires of the company's employees, and most importantly, full technical documentation on the production of drones, which was handed over to the relevant specialists of the Ukrainian Defense Forces," a source in Ukraine's military intelligence told the Kyiv Independent.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called upon the EU to take action against Ukraine's conscription practices in an interview with Origo published on July 15, amid an ongoing dispute with Kyiv over the death of a Ukrainian conscript of Hungarian ethnicity.

Show More