This week in history 

December 22, 1942: USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium institutes medals For the Defense of Leningrad, Odesa, Sevastopol, and Stalingrad. December 23, 1873: Taras Shevchenko Literary Society is established in Lviv (in 1892 renamed The Shevchenko Scientific Society. December 23, 1970: the Melitopol-Simferopol section is electrified, completing the process on the Leningrad-Moscow-Crimea railroad. December 24, 1653: Bohdan Khmelnytsky's troops defeat the Polish army at Zwaniec. December 24, 1932: USSR Commissar of Agriculture Lazar Kaganovich orders the seizure of even seed grain from Ukrainian villagers. December 24, 1941: Kyiv branch of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists resolves to start underground resistance against the Nazis. December 25,  Gregorian Calendar Christmas.December 25, 1917: A rump session of the First All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (about 100 of 1000 delegates who had met in Kyiv) elect the "People's Secretariat," the first Soviet government of Ukraine and invites in the Red Guards from Russia. December 25, 1951: government commission accepts the USSR's and continental Europe's first computer developed at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Electrical Engineering. December 25, 1991: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev resigns. December 26, 1963: Ukraine's first gas-petrol plant starts functioning in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast. December 26, 1991: the Council of the Republics of the USSR Supreme Soviet passed the Declaration attesting to the termination of the USSR as a polity and international legal entity. December 27, 1943: the motion picture titled The Front, based on Oleksandr Korniychuk's play starts being demonstrated at the Soviet movie theaters. December 27, 1979: Soviet troops enter Afghanistan. December 28, 1920: Ukraine and Russia sign a treaty recognizing each other as sovereign and independent republics, and establishing a military and economic alliances. December 28, 1938: a super 1,300 cu m blast furnace starts operating at Zaporizhstal (Zaporizhzhia).