Undated footage released by the Ukraine Defence Ministry on Jan 8, 2023 shows a group of Ukraine soldiers playing football in an unknown location on the battlefield in Ukraine.

"While there is a winter break in the Ukrainian Football League, our soldiers traditionally don't stop." The Ukraine Defence Ministry said in a social media post.

The UK Ministry of Defence said fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces continued at a “routine level” into the Orthodox Christmas period. The ministry’s daily intelligence update stated that fighting was focused in heavily forested terrain to the west of the town of Kremina in eastern Ukraine’s Luhansk province, where “combat has devolved to dismounted infantry fighting, often at short range”.

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