التصنيف: أخبار

Ukraine is officially marking Christmas on 25 December for the first time today – after it continued to fend off Russian drone attacks overnight.

Traditionally, Ukrainians have celebrated on 7 January, in line with the Russian Orthodox Church.

But in July, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed legislation moving the Christmas holiday to 25 December.

On Sunday, Mr Zelenskyy addressed the nation in a video clip filmed outside St Sophia Cathedral in central Kyiv.

He said: “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,” he added.

On the front line, soldiers have been gifted Christmas dinner, with religious leaders visiting in some areas to give services.

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Religious and political leaders, including the Pope, have called for a stop to the conflict in Ukraine as part of their Christmas messages.

Overnight, the Ukrainian military said it shot down 28 of 31 Russian drones and both missiles fired over the country.

They were launched over Kherson, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kirovohrad, and Khmelnytskyi, according to the Ukrainians.

On Sunday, five people were killed as a result of Russian fire in Kherson and one other in the eastern town of Horlivka.

Russia claims it has ‘upper hand’ on weapons

Meanwhile in Russia, deputy prime minister Denis Manturov has claimed the Kremlin has the upper hand on weapons production.

“I don’t want to boast, but I can say that we began to gain and picked up the pace of production earlier than Western countries,” he told the RIA news agency.

“Another question is how long this race will last,” he added, saying that a 2025-2034 armament plan is due to be approved this year.

President Vladimir Putin and his defence secretary Sergei Shoigu have already said that production of artillery, drones, tanks, and armoured vehicles is increasing.

A plane carrying hundreds of Indian citizens that was grounded in France for a human trafficking investigation is heading for India. 

Some 300 passengers spent four days blocked inside a rural French airport after a tip-off that the passengers may be the victims of people smugglers.

The Legend Airlines A340 plane was travelling from Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates to Managua, Nicaragua and stopped in Vatry in the Champagne region to refuel.

French authorities are still investigating the aim of the original flight and two passengers have been detained.

Prosecutors wouldn’t comment on the nature of the human trafficking allegations or whether the passengers’ ultimate destination could have been the US, which has seen a surge in Indians crossing the Mexico-US border this year.

French authorities worked through Christmas Eve and Christmas morning to allow passengers to leave the airfield, regional prosecutor Annick Browne told The Associated Press news agency.

The passengers include a 21-month-old child and 11 unaccompanied minors who were put under special administrative care.

The airport was taken over by police for days, and then turned into a makeshift courtroom Sunday as judges, lawyers and interpreters filled the terminal to carry out emergency hearings to determine next steps.

The plane received permission on Sunday to leave France and was expected to depart Monday, according to an official with the Marne regional administration.

Passengers were seen boarding the plane on Christmas morning.

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Legend Airlines lawyer Liliana Bakayoko said it received approval from French authorities to transport 301 of the 303 passengers on a direct flight to Mumbai, but not all passengers were expected to travel.

Several passengers have requested asylum in France, according to an official with the Marne regional prefecture.

Ms Bakayoko said some other passengers don’t want to go to India because they paid for a tourism trip to Nicaragua.

The airline has denied any role in possible human trafficking.

The US government has deemed Nicaragua as failing to meet minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking.

The Central American country has also been used as a route into the US by some migrants because of relaxed or visa-free entry requirements for some countries. Sometimes charter flights are used for the journey.