Over 100 evacuate Russia’s Belgorod while soldiers celebrate Orthodox Christmas on the front line

More than 100 residents of the Russian border city of Belgorod have evacuated to an area further from the Ukrainian border, local officials said. Ukrainian attacks on Dec. 30 in Belgorod killed 25 people. Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that military priests led prayer services on the front line to mark Orthodox Christmas both on Sunday and on Christmas Eve night. Russian President Vladimir Putin was joined by families of military personnel who died in the war in Ukraine at Christmas Eve services at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence, in the western suburbs of Moscow. In Ukraine on Sunday, two people died in Russian shelling of the city of Kherson.