New Orthodox Church of Ukraine calendar, verdict for rape in Kaharlyk: highlights of the day

Sentence for rape in Kaharlyk

A court has sentenced two former law enforcement officers who raped a woman in the Kaharlyk police station (Kyiv Oblast) in 2020 to 11 years in prison. The National Police was also ordered to pay moral damages of UAH 1.2 million ($32,541) to the victim, Nelia Pohrebytska.

Law enforcement officials did not name the convicts, but Mykola Kuziv and Serhiy Sulyma were previously charged with rape. The Prosecutor General's Office says that these police officers systematically resorted to torturing people in 2020. They also illegally detained people.

In early May, the victim's lawyer, Anna Kalynchuk, said that only two defendants in the Kaharlyk case were in the dock, as the other three had been mobilized. Two of them did so before the start of the trial, the lawyer noted.

New calendar of the OCU

The Bishops' Council of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine decided that starting September 1, the OCU will switch to a new calendar. The transition was supported almost unanimously. One bishop spoke against it, and another abstained.

Formally, the transition must be approved by the local council of the church on July 27, 2023, with the participation of the laity. However, the head of the OCU, Metropolitan Epiphanius, and a number of other bishops said that the issue had already been resolved and that the transition would take place on September 1.

According to the calendar change, the OCU will celebrate Christmas on December 25, not January 7. The Intercession is on October 1, and Epiphany is on January 6. However, the change will not affect Easter, as the holiday does not have a fixed date. Currently, Christians use two methods of calculating Easter - the Alexandrian method (used by Orthodox and Greek Catholics) and the Gregorian method (used by Roman Catholics and Protestants, respectively).

Battles for Bakhmut

On May 24, the intensity of fighting on the flanks in the suburbs of Bakhmut decreased. However, this does not indicate that the Russian occupation forces are weakening, said Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar.

"On the contrary, the enemy is trying to strengthen its flanks and relies on artillery fire, conducting constant shelling. At the same time, our troops manage to advance gradually," she noted.

Execution of a man in Luhansk Oblast

The head of the Luhansk regional military administration, Artem Lysohor, said that Russian occupiers hanged a man in the Svatove district of Luhansk Oblast. He had a clear pro-Ukrainian position.

"The Russian brutes were constantly pressuring him and subjected him to interrogation. They wanted to break him. However, the man from Svatove did not change his views and waited for liberation," says Lysohor.

Deportation of children

Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin announced that Ukrainian law enforcement is investigating Belarus' alleged role in the forced displacement of children from the territories temporarily occupied by Russia.

He said that the Prosecutor General's Office had opened a criminal investigation into the "forced transportation/deportation of more than 19,000 children" from the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, and Kharkiv oblasts. Some of them could have been taken to so-called health camps in Belarus.

Shahed drones in Kharkiv Oblast

On the night of May 24, Russian troops launched six drones at the Velykoburlutska community in Kharkiv Oblat. As a result, a school, office buildings, and a community center caught fire. Rescuers have already extinguished the fires. The attack also damaged residential buildings and outbuildings.