Christians across the world celebrated Christmas Wednesday, with the mood darkened by wars and a massive Christmas morning attack on Ukraine by Russia and a plane crash in Kazakhstan.
With the war in Gaza also showing no signs of ending, Pope Francis was also expected to call for peace in the Middle East during his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) speech at midday in Rome.
Francis used his Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican to urge Christians to think of “the wars, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombs on schools or hospitals” after another year of raging conflicts.
But as he was speaking, Moscow launched scores of missiles and drones in an attempt to take out Ukraine’s ravaged energy grid.
“Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack,” President Zelensky said. “What could be more inhumane? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than 100 attack drones. The target is our energy system”.
Ukraine has been celebrating Christmas on December 25 since 2017, having previously held the feast like many other Orthodox countries on January 7.