Home › Politics › What the Christmas date change signalled in Ukraine
What the Christmas date change signalled in Ukraine
Summary
A look back at two political developments reported in the days before 31 July 2023, from Kyiv's calendar reform to a Pyongyang military display.
What did Ukraine's decision on Christmas say about its direction as of 31 July 2023? On 28 July 2023, the president signed a parliamentary bill amending the Labour Code. It moved the celebration of Christmas in Ukraine from 7 January to 25 December, and shifted other state holidays whose dates are tied to religious observances. The stated aim was to abandon the Russian legacy of imposed Christmas celebrations.
The framing mattered. The change was presented not as a matter of labour rules alone but as a step away from a Russian inheritance, in the same text that set the new dates.
Elsewhere, a different alignment was on show. On 27 July 2023, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Russia's defence minister Sergei Shoigu and a Chinese delegation met in Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War. Kim and Shoigu also attended an exhibition of North Korean ballistic missiles. Those missiles are prohibited by several United Nations resolutions that China and Russia had endorsed.
Taken together, the two events, reported within a day of each other, showed Kyiv distancing itself from Russian influence while Moscow appeared alongside Pyongyang at a display of banned weapons.
