For.

The first time in more than 100 years, Ukraine will mark Christmas today instead of in January. It's a way of the country cutting ties with Russia, which celebrates according to the Orthodox calendar. Well, let's show you these live pictures from St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv. As we were saying for the first time, believers of different religious denominations will be celebrating Christmas on the same day. As you can see there, it's just one of a number of services being held on this day across Ukraine. As Ukrainians mark a second Christmas at war, President Zelensky said he's praying for victory and for evil to be defeated. His holiday address came after American politicians were unable to agree on military aid worth almost £50 billion for Keith. Here's our Ukraine correspondent, James Waterhouse, who's reporting from the city of Kupiansk, near the Eastern border, which was occupied for six months after Russia's full-scale invasion, and comes under almost daily attack.

Christmas in Kupiansk is a celebration in the neighbor. Children were evacuated from this front-line city, and only 5,000 people remain. It used to be five times that. Days are.

Punctuated.

With.

Artillery.

Shells and sirens. Life continues for those who've stayed, but it's a tense existence.

We all live in fear of death. When we go to work, we don't know what can happen, whether Russia will strike with rockets. We all will sleep on the edge. We don't know whether we'll come back home alive.

17-year-old Sophia has lived through both.

Occupation.

And liberation. Her dad is fighting, and she's not impressed with her country's fate, being determined by skeptical Western politicians.

Perhaps they should come here and see for themselves what the situation is like and how much the aid is needed. If there's no help for Ukraine now, Russia will takeits aggression further.

The Russians are eight kilometers.

To.

The east of the city. But what.

Ukraine's military is.

Worried about is them pushing once more up to the Oskill River before making another push. And that is the.

Point Kyiv is trying to make.

If Western.

Support was.

To further slow down, then Russia won't stop there. It still wants the whole of Ukraine.

The briefest of pauses for a Christmas prayer. Large gatherings are dangerous here when Russian drones loiter above. Instead of these troops forcing out their invaders, it is them repelling constant attacks.

It's day and night. There are no breaks. It's 24-7. You have more targets, so you need more shells. They throw lots of men and machinery into battle. They don't pity anything.

It's hard to sell a victory which seems distant.

Ukraine's struggle to.

Contain Western doubt has left it with a new year looking far from certain. James Waterhouse, BBC News, Kupiansk.

Well, the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, isn't very far from the front line where the country's soldiers are fighting Russian troops. So how does it feel to celebrate Christmas under the constant shadow of war? Well, James, who you saw just there, sent us his impressions.

It is the first time in more than 100 years that Ukraine celebrates Christmas on the 25th of December, but it's a very difficult time. We're not seeing much in the way of festivities. In this part of Ukraine, large gatherings are a rare occurrence. This is somewhere that comes under frequent assault from the sky. It's 40 miles from the Russian border. But President Zelensky was keen to strike an optimistic, a hopeful tone in his Christmas address where he said he would pray for a Ukrainian victory, and in his words for evil to be defeated, he talked of previous struggles Ukraine has gone through, whether it was under the Soviet Union or through Nazi Germany, and he's drawing direct parallels. But I think these are incredibly difficult times. Twelve months ago, his military had liberated swathes of territory throughout the autumn. There was a belief that Ukraine wouldn't stop there and a belief that Ukraine can still win this war. I think that belief is enduring, but there is a pragmatism starting to creep into because the last 12 months has seen Ukraine's counter-offensive, but it's also seen Russia not only hold on to the fifth of Ukraine that it has taken and occupied, but it's also shown Russia can defend it too.

This is a war which favors the defender in a way. I think when Ukraine is still the smaller boxer in this fight, if you like. It's got fewer men. It has fewer resources than Russia. Russia is now starting to make its size count. We are in a war of attrition. We've seen dozens of drones shot down again overnight. That's now part of a regular routine in Ukraine. We are seeing Ukraine repelling wave after wave of Russian attack in some parts of the front line. We're even seeing it scale down its military operations in others because the waning Western support isn't just putting Ukraine's future military hopes into jeopardy, it's affecting them right now. We've heard Western governments say, We're in it for as long as it takes for Ukraine. We can't allow Russia to win. But there is a political reality setting in, whether it's opposition MPs, whether it's a new government that doesn't want to provide new support for Ukraine. The argument here is that that is what Russia has been waiting for. Any peace deal or negotiation suits Vladimir Putin because it lessens that urgency on Western support to continue, and it allows Russia to continue being on a war footing so it can make a push, Ukraine argues, in the coming months or even years for Kyiv once more.