Even thermometers can't keep up with the plunging temperatures in Russia's remote Yakutia region, which hit minus 67 degrees Celsius (minus 88.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas Tuesday.
In this photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018, Anastasia Gruzdeva poses for selfie as the Temperature dropped to about -50 degrees (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) in Yakutsk, Russia. (sakhalife.ru photo via AP)
In Yakutia — a region of 1 million people about 3,300 miles (5,300 kilometers) east of Moscow — students routinely go to school even in minus 40 degrees. But school was canceled Tuesday throughout the region and police ordered parents to keep their children inside.
In the village of Oymyakon, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth, state-owned Russian television showed the mercury falling to the bottom of a thermometer that was only set up to measure down to minus 50 degrees. In 2013, Oymyakon recorded an all-time low of minus 71 degrees Celsius (minus 98 Fahrenheit).
In this photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018, Anastasia Gruzdeva, left, poses for selfie with her friends as the temperature dropped to about -50 degrees (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) in Yakutsk, Russia. (sakhalife.ru photo via AP)
Over the weekend, two men froze to death when they tried to walk to a nearby farm after their car broke down. Three other men with them survived because they were wearing warmer clothes, investigators reported.
But the press office for Yakutia's governor said Tuesday that all households and businesses in the region have working central heating and access to backup power generators.
In this photo taken on Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018, thermometer shows as the temperature dropped to -65 degrees Centigrade (-85 degrees Fahrenheit) in Tomtor village in the east of Yakutia, the center of the 2nd Borogonsky heritage of the Oymyakonsky ulus. (sakhalife.ru photo via AP)
Residents of Yakutia are no strangers to cold weather and this week's cold spell was not even dominating local news headlines Tuesday.
But some media outlets published cold-weather selfies and stories about stunts in the extreme cold. Women posted pictures of their frozen eyelashes, while YakutiaMedia published a picture of Chinese students who got undressed to take a plunge in a thermal spring.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Ukraine marked its third Easter at war, Russia on Sunday launched a barrage of drones concentrated in Ukraine’s east, wounding more than a dozen people, and claimed its troops took control of a village they had been targeting.
Ukraine’s air force said that Russia had launched 24 Shahed drones overnight, of which 23 were shot down.
Six people, including a child, were wounded in a drone strike in the eastern Kharkiv region, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Fourteen more were wounded in an airstrike Sunday afternoon on the Kharkiv regional capital, also called Kharkiv, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Syniehubov said the city was attacked by an aerial bomb.
Fires broke out when debris from drones that were shot down fell on buildings in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. No casualties were reported.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced Sunday that its troops had taken control of the village of Ocheretyne, which has been in the crosshairs of Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Drone footage obtained by The Associated Press showed the village battered by fighting. Not a single person is seen in the footage obtained late Friday, and no building in Ocheretyne appears to have been left untouched by the fighting.
Officials in Kyiv urged residents to follow Orthodox Easter services online due to safety concerns. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city administration, warned that “even on such bright days of celebration, we can expect evil deeds from the aggressor.”
In his Easter address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to be “united in one common prayer.”
In a video filmed in front of Kyiv’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, wearing a traditional Vyshyvanka embroidered shirt, Zelenskyy said that God “has a chevron with the Ukrainian flag on his shoulder.” With “such an ally,” Zelenskyy said, “life will definitely win over death.”
A majority of Ukrainians identify as Orthodox Christians, though the church is divided. Many belong to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The rival Ukrainian Orthodox Church was loyal to the patriarch in Moscow until splitting from Russia after the 2022 invasion and is viewed with suspicion by many Ukrainians.
In Moscow, worshippers including President Vladimir Putin packed Moscow’s landmark Christ the Savior Cathedral late Saturday for a nighttime Easter service led by Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church and an outspoken supporter of the Kremlin.
Eastern Orthodox Christians usually celebrate Easter later than Catholic and Protestant churches, because they use a different method of calculating the date for the holy day that marks Christ’s resurrection.
Morton reported from London.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
EDITORS AND LIBRARIANS: KILL FROM YOUR SYSTEMS AND ARCHIVES PHOTO FS110, SLUGGED RUSSIA UKRAINE WAR ORTHODOX EASTER AND TRANSMITTED ON SUNDAY, MAY 5, 2024. THE AUTHORITIES THAT GRANTED ACCESS TO THIS EVENT NOW HAVE CONCERNS OVER THIS ONE FRAME. NO REPLACEMENT PHOTO WILL BE SENT. - Priest Ivan, blesses Ukrainian servicemen of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service Donetsk region, Ukraine, early Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Priest Ivan, chaplain of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian army, leads a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Priest Ivan, blesses Ukrainian servicemen of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service Donetsk region, Ukraine, early Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Priest Ivan blesses Ukrainian servicemen of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, early Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Priest Ivan, chaplain of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian army, lights candles during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Priest Ivan, chaplain of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian army, leads a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Food are gathered to be blessed during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service at the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade compound, in Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, early Sunday, May 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
An Ukrainian serviceman of the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, lights candles during a Christian Orthodox Easter religious service, in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Saturday, May 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
