​For the first time, Ukraine celebrated Christmas on December 25 instead of January 7 according to the old rite together with Russia, for the first time since 1917, with this symbolic decision Volodymyr Zelensky distanced himself from a country that is at war with Moscow. “We all celebrate Christmas together. At the same time, as one big family, as one nation, as one single country,” Zelensky said in his Christmas message.

All information about the war in Ukraine – day 670 – LIVE on HotNews.ro:

09:35Russia has an edge over the West in arms production and plans to maintain high growth rates, a Russian minister said on Monday, after both the West and Russia stepped up production of weapons for the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

“I don’t want to brag, but I can say that we started to grow and increase the pace of production earlier than Western countries,” Deputy Prime Minister Denys Manturov, who oversees arms production, told RIA. “One more question is how long the race will last.” said Manturov, adding that the weapons plan for 2025-2034 should be approved next year.

Summary of recent events:

• Ukrainian officials reported that on Sunday, five civilians were killed as a result of Russia’s attack on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. The regional police reported that three people were killed as a result of the shelling of a residential building in the city of Kherson.
• Polish farmers have stopped blocking one of the checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish border, the movement of trucks has been fully restored, the Ukrainian border service reported. Since November 6, drivers have blocked several checkpoints with Ukraine, demanding that the EU re-introduce a system under which Ukrainian companies need work permits.
• Ukrainian Orthodox Christians attended the service on Sunday, as the country celebrated Christmas for the first time on December 25, and not according to the old rite on January 7 together with Russia. on Sunday evening. “We all celebrate Christmas together. At the same time, as one big family, as one nation, as one single country,” he said.
• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems shot down four Ukrainian warplanes in the past 24 hours — just two days after Zelenskyy said Kyiv had shot down three Russian planes. In its daily message, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that the Russian military shot down three Su-27 fighter jets and one Su-24 tactical bomber in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions of southeastern Ukraine.
• Hundreds of supporters of Ihor Girkin, a former commander of pro-Russian militias in Ukraine, gathered in Moscow on Sunday to support his candidacy for the presidency. Better known by his pseudonym Igor Strelkov, Girkin was a key leader of separatist militants in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The nationalist was a sharp critic of Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine. He was detained in July on extremism charges after a series of posts critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to win re-election.
• Overnight, Russia launched 15 drones over Ukraine, most of them in the south of the country, and 14 of them destroyed air defense equipment, the Ukrainian military reported on Sunday.