In lighter news, Ukraine has changed their official state Christmas celebration from January 7th to December 25th so that it doesn’t coincide with that of Russia.
Your link says the President supported this, but as far as I know he is not a Patriarch. In real terms, what % of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians follow the Catholic (Gregorian) calendar? 50 percent? 80 percent?
67% of Ukrainians follow the Orthodox church. 25th of December (Gregorian Christmas) has been an official holiday in Ukraine since 2017. 7th January (Julian Christmas), traditionally used by the Orthodox church, has been an official holiday, but will be phased out 2024-25.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church? The Orthodox Church of Ukraine? The Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church? You see the problem…
No, please specify what the issue is exactly.
The middle subsumes the former and the latter as of 2019. The current outlying group are those holding to the Moscow Patriarchate, a pretty small percentage.
The issue is, now 80% (a completely made-up figure; my question was, what is the actual percentage?) of Ukrainian Orthodox churchgoers follow the Gregorian calendar, and 20% follow the Julian calendar.
Splitters!
I’m not entirely sure. One I link found says that “said one-third of Ukrainians had favored a change to the Gregorian calendar before the 2022 invasion by Russia.” It also says that “survey reported by the website Religion in Ukraine found that 71% of Ukrainians celebrate Christmas in January, 4% celebrate in December, and 18% celebrate Christmas twice. Only 6% do not celebrate at all. About 58% of survey respondents opposed a change in the date of Christmas, while only 26% supported it, Christian Network Europe News reported in June.”
It looks like this was something the Patriarchs had discussed earlier and Zelenskyy had just made it official.
Moderating:
Hopefully that resolves this sidebar, if not please start a new thread.
Current story on CNN: Wagner troops moving towards Polish border and could try sneaking across, PM says
More than 100 troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are moving towards a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, Poland’s prime minister says, who warned they could pose as migrants to cross the border.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Saturday that his government had received information that the Wagner mercenaries were not far from Grodno, a city in western Belarus close to the land, which is also known as the Suwalki gap or corridor.
…
Morawiecki repeated allegations that Belarus, a key ally to Russia, has been sending migrants westward in an attempt to overwhelm Polish border forces.The troop movements, Morawiecki said, appeared to be another element in this campaign to destabilize the border.
“They will probably be disguised as Belarusian border guards and will help illegal immigrants to enter Polish territory, destabilize Poland, but they will also probably try to infiltrate Poland pretending to be illegal immigrants and this creates additional risks,” he said.
This, if correct, is threatening a NATO country directly. I can’t see this happening without Putin’s knowledge and approval, and I doubt anyone would buy into any “this is all Belarus’s doing” figleaf, so why? Other than perhaps trying to distract the West with trouble in Poland, what’s the benefit for Putin?
All chaos all the time benefits Putin by remaking the world in his image. Causing each of the currently Westernizing / Westernized former Warsaw Pact countries to collapse into gangsterism would be a lovely turn of events from Putin’s nihilist 10th Century Rus POV.
Hid Political Swipe
If nothing else, the wider the number and range of brushfires burning on EU/NATO borders come early 2024 the more likely his lackeys, the US Republicans, will denounce all support for Europe as a wasteful and hopeless distraction from American First. Make all Europe look like an unwinnable quagmire and the US Right will cut and run like the shortsighted cowards they are.
Moderating:
And remember, this is breaking news and not P&E. No more political swipes.
Russia has taken to damaging Ukraine’s ports on the Danube to stop them from shipping grain. After that, the overland routes.
And yet, "during the Africa-Russia Summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was ready to replace Ukrainian grain exports to Africa on both a commercial and aid basis to help avoid a “global food crisis”. I don’t think I’d trust him to keep that promise.
Starve your enemy and use that food to make new friends, who are already depending on your hired guns. That’s Putin.
Factory rep repairs are usually the best. The electronics in modern tanks would require skilled techs and replacement circuit boards.
The Guardian feed
This may be from the same article, or related anyway. It goes into detail about the various types of tank being used and the agreement reached to fix them. It sounds like a good deal to get those damaged tanks back in the fight.
Ukraine is shooting missles/drones/something into Moscow. I believe this has been discussed in this thread.
My question is what exactly is being shot into Moscow, and more importantly, who is providing it to Ukraine (or is it Ukraines/Ukraine made it).
I’m asking because I’d guess, say, the US, would not want its weapons shot into Moscow (but fine shooting inside Ukraine). Not sure why I think that.
Ukraine-made “Beaver” drones:
Probably in part 1. The impression was that the devices seen hitting the Duma dome would not have had the 300+ mile range to get from Ukraine to Moscow on their own. Which is not to say that there could not be some kind of ferry vehicle to get them close, but it really looked like they had to have come from inside Russia. Also, the timing was very odd. The ones we saw video of struck around 1am local. Why would Ukraine waste resources on a silly stunt like that?
Waking up Muscovites at 1am with the message “You are not safe in your own bed until your country withdraws from Ukraine” is a very useful message to send. “Good luck sleeping tomorrow night. We’ll be back.”
Certainly better if they could keep it up night after night WW-II V-1 & V-II style. That may well be in the offing.