Home › Politics › Ukraine's Christmas move: what was signed in July 2023
Ukraine's Christmas move: what was signed in July 2023
Summary
A look back at a legislative change on holiday dates and a Pyongyang meeting reported in the days before 2 August 2023.
What had changed in Ukraine's holiday calendar by 2 August 2023? The most recent relevant step came on 28 July 2023, when Volodymyr Zelensky signed a bill passed by parliament amending the Labour Code. It moved the date of Christmas celebrations in Ukraine from 7 January to 25 December.
The bill also covered other state holidays whose dates are tied to religious ones. Its stated aim, as reported at the time, was to abandon what it called the Russian legacy of imposing Christmas celebrations.
Elsewhere in the region's politics, on 27 July 2023 North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and a Chinese delegation in Pyongyang. The occasion was the 70th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War.
Kim and Shoigu also attended an exhibition of North Korean ballistic missiles. Multiple United Nations resolutions, endorsed by both China and Russia, prohibit those missiles.
