“They talked about a so-called ceasefire…but the reality is that Russian shells continued to hit Bakhmout.” In a message posted Saturday evening on social networks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky castigated the Christmas truce decided unilaterally by Russia. This ceasefire, decreed by Moscow from Friday noon, ended at midnight (Saturday 10 p.m. in Paris), without the hostilities having really ceased. Follow the news of the conflict during the day of Sunday January 8 with franceinfo.
No truce in Bakhmout. In Bakhmout, the epicenter of the fighting, artillery fire from both sides of the front was heard on Friday, in the hours following the establishment of the unilateral ceasefire by Russia. According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, two people were killed and 13 injured in Bakhmut on Friday, in a city largely destroyed by fighting and where both sides face heavy losses.
A meeting on war crimes in March. In London, the British government announced that a meeting of justice ministers would be held in March to support the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on war crimes and crimes against humanity, of which the forces are mainly accused. Russians in Ukraine.
Christmas celebrations in a unique context. The two countries, at war since February 2022, celebrated the Orthodox Christmas holiday on Saturday, the majority faith in Russia and Ukraine. On the Russian side, Vladimir Putin attended a religious service alone in a Kremlin church, departing from his habit of attending the liturgy in public, in the provinces or on the outskirts of Moscow. On the Ukrainian side, hundreds of faithful attended a historic liturgy on Saturday in the famous monastery of the Lavra of the Caves of kyiv, formerly under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate, but passed in December into the bosom of the Independent Ukrainian Church.