Ukraine moves Christmas amid heavy fighting

By Stefan J. Bos

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says a group of a hundred soldiers from the Russian Wagner mercenary group have moved closer to the Belarusian city of Grodno near the Polish border.

Poland, a former Warsaw Pact member who has been a full member of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance since 1999, has been concerned about the possible spillover of the war in Ukraine onto its territory.

The mercenaries have been crucial in military operations since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. They were asked to leave for Belarus after a mutiny against Russia's military leadership. But Poland remains concerned that they will remain a tool by Moscow to destabilize the region.

The concerns came as fighting intensified inside Ukraine, with Russia claiming its forces struck a command post in Ukraine's city of Dnipro on Friday. However, Kyiv maintains that a missile hit an apartment block there, wounding nine people, including two children.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian authorities said an engineer at Europe's largest nuclear power in Zaporizhzhia, occupied by Russia, is being tortured following his abduction last month.

Amid the setbacks, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited Ukrainian troops in "advanced positions" near the eastern Bakhmut frontline on Saturday.

Earlier, he visited a damaged cathedral and medical center in Odesa following Russian strikes there.

He also found time to sign into law that moves the official Christmas Day state holiday from January 7 to December 25 to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Kyiv says that for centuries, first imperial Russia and then the Moscow-dominated Soviet Union had tried to control Ukraine.

This included the imposed authority of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) over Ukraine's churches.

But in 2019, the recently formed Orthodox Church of Ukraine was granted independence by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide.