January 7, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage has ended for the day. You can read more about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine here, or scroll through the updates below.

Russian servicemen fire a BM-21 Grad multiple launch rocket system in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Shortly before midnight on Orthodox Christmas, several explosions were reported throughout Ukraine. 

A CNN team in Kramatorsk heard at least seven explosions late Saturday evening as air raid sirens were activated. It isn’t clear if there were casualties from the explosions.

The explosions began after 11 p.m. local time, one hour before Russia’s proposed ceasefire was to end. The ceasefire, proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and dismissed as a cynical ploy by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, was supposed to last for 36 hours from noon Moscow time on Friday (4 a.m. ET).

In Kharkiv, one person was killed after two missiles were launched in the town of Merefa, the head of the region’s military administration said on Telegram Saturday.

Explosions were also heard Saturday evening on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia, said Anatolii Kurtev, the city council secretary.

Fighting continued Saturday as Orthodox Christmas celebrations were underway.

Here are more of the latest headlines in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:

Orthodox Christmas: Many Ukrainians and major churches are celebrating Orthodox Christmas. In Kyiv, the Dormition Cathedral, which is part of the historic Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, held mass in the Ukrainian language Saturday for the first time in centuries.

In a holiday message, Putin praised the Russian Orthodox Church and religious organizations for supporting Russian forces who are taking part in what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Kyiv dismisses Putin’s call for a ceasefire: Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a temporary 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to allow for celebrations, but Ukrainian officials dismissed the proposal as “hypocrisy” and “propaganda,” as Russia’s unrelenting onslaught continues.

Fighting continues: At least two people were killed and 13 wounded by artillery shelling of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Saturday during the Russian-proposed ceasefire, according to a regional prosecutor. A drone was also shot down over the Crimean city of Sevastopol’s Northern Pier during the ceasefire, according to Russian politician Mikhail Razvozhaev. So far Ukraine has not responded to the claim.

This map shows the latest state of control in Ukraine:

Metropolitan Epiphanius conducts an Orthodox Christmas service at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on Saturday in Kyiv.

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, lamented the change of control of one of the most famous Orthodox churches in Kyiv, which on Saturday held its first Orthodox Christmas mass in the Ukrainian language in centuries.

The Dormition Cathedral, part of the historic Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, returned to the direct control of the Ukrainian government after a contract for the use of the building by a branch of the Ukrainian church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) — which had close ties with Moscow and used the complex as a home base — expired on Dec. 31, 2022. 

The Ukrainian government suspended the lease of the UOC to the Dormition Cathedral and the Refectory Church — also known as the Tabernacle Church — and returned them to state control in January. 

The Ukrainian government also announced that the other major church branch, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), had been granted permission to celebrate a Christmas service on Jan. 7 in the Dormition Cathedral. The service was led by the Head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine Epiphanius I. 

People sing as Metropolitan Epiphanius conducts an Orthodox Christmas service at Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra on Saturday in Kyiv.

Metropolitan Epiphanius called the mass a “historical event” held in “historical circumstances, in a historical place.” 

Up until Saturday’s mass, services were held in Old Church Slavonic, which is used as liturgical language by some Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. 

SBU raid: The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) raided the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra in late November as part of an effort to counter suspected “subversive activities of (the) Russian special services” in the country. The raid was aimed at “preventing the use of the Lavra as a cell of the ‘Russian world’” and the “use of Ukrainian Orthodox Church premises for hiding sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign citizens, storing weapons,” the SBU said in a statement.

The SBU has carried out searches of premises belonging to the UOC in several regions.  

Dec. 25 vs Jan. 7: In October last year, the OCU announced that it would allow its churches to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 — which marks the birth of Jesus according to the Gregorian calendar — in addition to Jan. 7, which marks the birth of Jesus according to the Julian calendar, deepening the rift with the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox believers who observe the Julian calendar. 

In May last year, the leaders of the other main branch, the UOC, which had been formally subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, announced they are breaking ties with Moscow, but part of the church had remained loyal to Russia. 

Uliana Pavlova contributed reporting to this post.

Worshippers all over Ukraine celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Saturday. The Orthodox holiday follows the Georgian calendar and is marked Jan. 7.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladmir Putin called for a temporary 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to allow Orthodox followers to attend Christmas services.

The proposal was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Russia aims to use Orthodox Christmas “as a cover” to resupply and stop Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region.

This year’s holiday marks the first time an Orthodox Church of Ukraine primate held service at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery in Kyiv in decades. The monastery was under the control of the Russian-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church until November, when it was raided by the Ukrainian Security Service as part of an effort to counter suspected “subversive activities” of Russia’s special services.

Worshippers light candles during an Orthodox Christmas service at the St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv on Saturday.

People pray in St. Volodymyr's Cathedral on Orthodox Christmas Eve in Kyiv on Friday.

Ukrainian servicepeople take part in Orthodox Christmas Eve celebrations in Lviv on Friday.

Metropolitan Epiphanius I, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, leads a Christmas service inside the Holy Dormition Cathedral for the first time Saturday in Kyiv. The cathedral is part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, which was under the control of the Russian-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church for decades.

A priest leads an Orthodox Christmas mass in a basement shelter in Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine on Saturday.

A priest offers the holy communion to a woman during Christmas service in Kostyantynivka on Friday.

At least 453 children have been killed and at least 877 have been injured since the start of the war in Ukraine, the country’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Saturday. 

It comes after UNICEF warned last month that Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Ukraine have put the physical and mental health of “almost every child” in the country “at desperate risk.”

Children watch television in a basement where neighbors gather to seek protection from shelling by Russian forces December 22 in the city of Bakhmut.

“Millions of children are facing a bleak winter huddled in the cold and the dark, with little idea of how or when respite may arrive,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

“Beyond the immediate threats the freezing conditions bring, children are also deprived of the ability to learn or stay connected with friends and family, putting both their physical and their mental health at desperate risk.”  

Damaged health facilities may be unable to provide critical services, while malfunctioning water systems “raise the already extremely high risks of pneumonia, seasonal influenza, waterborne diseases and Covid-19,” UNICEF said.  

Russian Patriarch Kirill leads a Christmas mass at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin praised in a holiday message the Russian Orthodox Church and religious organizations for supporting Russian forces who are taking part in what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine. 

In a message marking the Orthodox Christmas, Putin said the “serene” holiday “inspires noble deeds and aspirations,” according to a transcript released by the Kremlin on Saturday.

Putin attended services on Christmas Eve at the Kremlin’s Annunciation Cathedral, according to the Kremlin. 

On Thursday, he called for a temporary 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to allow Orthodox followers to attend Christmas services.

But the proposal was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Russia aims to use Orthodox Christmas “as a cover” to resupply and stop Ukrainian advances in the eastern Donbas region.

An Iranian-made Russian drone is seen during a strike in Kyiv on October 17, 2022.

The US Treasury on Friday imposed sanctions on officials tied to an Iranian defense manufacturer that designs and produces unmanned aerial vehicles, which have been used in the war in Ukraine, as well as the director of “the key organization responsible for overseeing Iran’s ballistic missile programs.”

The new US sanctions hit “six executives and board members of U.S. designated Qods Aviation Industries” and the director of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, according to a Treasury press release.

“We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to deny Putin the weapons that he is using to wage his barbaric and unprovoked war on Ukraine,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said in a statement. 

CNN has reported how, according to a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, parts made by more than a dozen US and Western companies were found inside a single Iranian Shahed-136 drone downed in Ukraine last fall.

In December, the White House created an administration-wide task force to investigate how US and Western-made technology – ranging from smaller equipment like semiconductors and GPS modules to larger parts like engines – has ended up in Iranian drones.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

Plumes of smoke rise from a Russian strike on the frontline city of Bakhmut on Saturday.

At least two people were killed and 13 wounded by artillery shelling of the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut on Saturday during the Russian-proposed ceasefire, according to a regional prosecutor. 

In a Facebook post Saturday, the Donetsk Regional Prosecutor’s Office said it had launched a pretrial investigation into events on Friday. 

“According to the investigation, on January 6, 2023, the occupation forces of the Russian Federation carried out regular artillery shelling of the city of Bakhmut and Bakhmut district,” the prosecutor said. 

A CNN team on the ground in Bakhmut on Friday observed incoming and outgoing artillery fire around Bakhmut since the Russian ceasefire began at 11 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) that day. 

The ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and rejected by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was supposed to last for 36 hours. 

“As a result of powerful mortar attacks on residential areas, a 66-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman died. Thirteen more people received mine-blast injuries and shrapnel wounds,” the prosecutor added in the statement. 

Private households, apartment buildings and other objects were damaged and destroyed by Friday’s shelling, according to the prosecutor.

Ukraine’s military maintained that Russia attacked Ukrainian positions across the east and south of the country until 6 a.m. Kyiv time Saturday, despite the ceasefire declared unilaterally by Moscow. 

A Russian-installed governor in the Crimean city of Sevastopol has said a drone was shot down over the city’s Northern Pier during the Russian proposed ceasefire. 

Mikhail Razvozhaev posted on his official Telegram account in the early hours of Saturday (after 2 a.m. local time, 7 p.m. ET) announcing that “air defense forces shot down an UAV over the Northern Pier just 15 minutes ago.”

“Even the holy holiday – Christmas for these non-humans – is not a reason to stop their attempts to attack our Hero City,” he added. 

The ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, but rejected by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, was supposed to last for 36 hours from noon Moscow time on Friday [4 a.m. ET]. 

So far Ukraine has not responded to the claim made by Razvozhaev. 

Sevastopol serves as a base for the Russian navy in Crimea, providing a home for Russia’s Black Sea fleet. The port has been subjected to previous attacks during the war with a barrage of drone attacks taking place in October. 

Ships and submarines routinely set out from Sevastopol with sea-launched cruise missiles to attack Ukraine’s infrastructure and especially its power grid.

Ukrainian soldiers patrol in front of the Opera House in Lviv on Friday night.

Orthodox Christmas – and the long-standing rift between the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox groups – has been thrust into the spotlight this year by Russian President Vladmir Putin’s call for a temporary 36-hour ceasefire in Ukraine to allow Orthodox followers to attend Christmas services.

Putin’s proposal was swiftly dismissed as “hypocrisy” and “propaganda” by Ukrainian officials, and shelling has continued from both sides.

In recent years, a large part of the Orthodox community in Ukraine has sought to distance itself from Moscow.

The movement was accelerated by the conflict Russia stoked in eastern Ukraine beginning in 2014 and strengthened further in 2018, after Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople endorsed the establishment of an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has exacerbated this divide and highlighted fundamental ideological differences between the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox Churches.

Read more on Orthodox Christmas here.

Emergency workers remove debris of the destroyed building used as temporary accommodation for the Russian soldiers killed in a Ukrainian missile strike in Makiivka on January 3.

It was New Year’s Eve, one of the most cherished holidays in Russia. The recruits in President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine – hundreds of them mobilized just months ago – were billeted in makeshift barracks, a vocational school in the occupied city of Makiivka, in the Donetsk region. Next door was a large ammunition depot.

The soldiers missed their wives, their families, so they turned on their cellphones and called home. Suddenly, HIMARS rockets, satellite-guided precision weapons that the United States has supplied to Ukraine, hit the school, almost completely destroying it, and igniting the cache of ammunition.

That, at least officially, is how the Russian military is explaining the deadliest known attack on Russian forces in Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.

But that explanation, and details of the attack that have surfaced, have ignited an extraordinary national blame game among Russians, with military leaders facing the brunt of the criticism. No one so far, however – at least publicly – is blaming Putin for the deaths.

Read the full analysis here.

Ukrainian soldiers fire grad missiles in the Donetsk region on Friday.

Russia attacked Ukrainian positions across the east and south of the country in the 24-hours to 6 a.m. Kyiv time Saturday, despite a ceasefire declared unilaterally by Moscow, Ukraine’s military said.

The ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, but rejected by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, was supposed to last for 36 hours from noon Moscow time on Friday [4 a.m. ET].

In an operational update Saturday morning, Ukraine said Russia launched one missile strike and 20 rocket launches in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. Saturday.

Without specifying exact times, Ukraine reported the shelling of various military positions in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and the continuation of Russia’s offensive toward Bakhmut.

“Russian occupants shelled the territory of Kherson region 39 times. Civilian settlements in the region were attacked with artillery, MLRS, mortars and tanks,” read a Saturday statement from Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of Kherson region military administration.

On civilian was killed in the shelling in Kherson Friday, according to Yanushevych.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday announced a new $2.85 billion drawdown in military assistance to Ukraine, which will include “Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, artillery systems, armored personnel carriers, surface-to-air missiles, ammunition, and other items to support Ukraine as it bravely defends its people, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity.”

The top US diplomat said the administration would work with Congress “to provide an additional $907 million of Foreign Military Financing under the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022.”

“Funds will support Ukraine and countries impacted by Russia’s war in Ukraine,” Blinken said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took to Twitter to welcome “the all-time US defense aid package.” 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Chair of the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services Jack Reed and a member of this Committee, Sen. Angus King, in Kyiv on Friday.

During the meeting, Zelensky said he views the Russian proposal of a 36-hour “ceasefire” as a “manipulation by which the aggressor tries to hide its true military plans and intentions.”

Following the meeting in a briefing to journalists, Reed said he told Zelensky his and his country’s sacrifice has inspired the world and “that they are fighting the fight for all of us.”

He said President Joe Biden’s announcement of additional military support, such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicles, will give Ukrainian forces “the ability to break through front lines, exploit that breakthrough and go on – we hope to – eject the Russians from Ukrainian territory.”

Asked by CNN’s Scott McLean if sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles will open the door to the US sending M-1 Abrams tanks, Reed said there is no connection.

He said he is always concerned about US stockpiles of weapons and equipment and that goes into the Pentagon decisions on what to send, in response to a question from CNN.

King said they had an “extraordinary day” in Kyiv, as he remarked on the “courage, commitment… and grit” of the Ukrainian people.

He said they were visiting because “this is a fight for us, for all the world, for the values of freedom and democracy – and that is why this commitment is necessary.”

Asked what else the United States will send Ukraine to end the war this year, King said America will continue to support Ukraine and after meeting with officials in Kyiv they had “walked out with a list.”

Reed said he had been “inspired” to “expedite the assistance that Ukraine needs to finish this fight.”

He said the US had made a huge commitment and to expect a further announcement soon. King said training on the Patriot defense missile system being sent to Ukraine “will begin shortly” but the length of training is classified.