Joy to the world ...

What a Christmas season Russia is giving the world! In the early morning of December 25, to celebrate the birth of the Christ child and the first day of Hannukah, Putin's jolly elves launched 184 missiles and drones against Ukraine with a special focus on hitting power plants and depriving civilians of heat and light as the winter intensifies.

Later in the day, Russian air-defense gunners targeted an airliner trying to land at Grozny airport, jamming its GPS system and probably hitting it with a missile, after which it was denied permission to land and sent on a dangerous path over the Caspian Sea. It was hit again once it reached the safety of land, making it the second civilian airliner shot down by the Russian Federation in its brief history.

As the week continued, a Russian oil tanker dragged its anchor over undersea cables in the Baltic Seas, much as a Chinese vessel did last month, and as many as 3,000 North Korean soldiers have been killed, wounded, or captured as Putin tries to erase Ukraine's lodgment in Kursk province.