© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Vlad of the 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade leads an APC on the front lines during the Orthodox Christmas, during a ceasefire announced by Russia during the Orthodox Christmas season, from the Kreminna front region, Ukraine, 6 January 2023.
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(Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin has praised the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Moscow forces fighting in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message designed to rally people behind his vision of modern Russia.
FIGHTER
* Russia’s defense ministry said its forces in Ukraine would maintain a unilaterally declared ceasefire in honor of Orthodox Christmas until midnight, despite Ukraine’s refusal to offer a truce.
* Kyiv dismissed Moscow’s ceasefire as a ploy to buy its forces time to rest and rearm, and both sides exchanged artillery fire on the front lines of Ukraine on Friday.
* The Russian-installed governor of the Crimean city of Sevastopol said on Saturday air defenses shot down a drone in what he suggested was the latest attempted Ukrainian attack on a port where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based.
* The shelling echoed through the nearly deserted streets of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Saturday, currently the focus of the most intense fighting in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Reuters was unable to ascertain the origin of the grenades heard at Bakhmut.
DIPLOMACY/HELP
* Justice ministers from around the world will meet in London in March to boost international support for the International Criminal Court in its investigation into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the British government said.
* The United States will provide more than $3.75 billion in military assistance to Ukraine and countries affected by Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday.
* The US pledge to supply Kiev with Bradley fighting vehicles for the first time is exactly what Ukraine needs, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday.
* Germany said on Friday it would deliver about 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine by the end of March, and Deputy Chancellor Robert Habeck said Berlin could eventually send its entire working fleet of weapons.
ECONOMY, ENERGY
* Ukraine will need at least $1.79 billion to restore its telecommunications sector to pre-war levels, a United Nations agency said Friday, arguing Russia had “completely destroyed or seized” networks in some parts of the country.* Costs for chartering cargo vessels from the Black Sea have risen by more than a fifth since the start of the year, reflecting higher war risk insurance rates, industry sources said.
Ukraine’s power grid operator on Friday issued a new appeal to civilians to save electricity as temperatures drop and energy consumption rises, threatening fresh tensions on a grid devastated by Russian airstrikes.