Zelensky warns of ‘nasty’ Russian attack ahead of Ukraine independence day

Volodymyr Zelensky has advised Ukrainians to be aware of potential “nasty” and “cruel” attacks by Russia’s forces, in the run-up to Ukraine’s independence day next week.

The Ukrainian president urged citizens to be vigilant ahead of the celebrations on Wednesday 24 August which will mark 31 years of independence from Soviet rule.

Mr Zelensky said Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to “spread despondency and fear” ahead of the national holiday that is to take place exactly six months after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine.

But, he warned on Saturday in his nightly address to Ukrainians: “We should be aware that this week Russia may try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel. Such is our enemy.

“But in any other week during these six months, Russia did the same thing all the time – disgusting and cruel.

“One of the key tasks of the enemy is to humiliate us, Ukrainians, to devalue our capabilities, our heroes, to spread despair, fear, to spread conflicts... Therefore, it is important never, for a single moment, to give in to this enemy pressure, not to wind oneself up, not to show weakness.”

Residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city which has regularly been hit by Russian missiles, will be under curfew for the whole of Wednesday, regional governor Oleh Synehub said.

“Remain at home and take heed of warnings!” he wrote to residents on the Telegram messaging app.

In his speech, Mr Zelensky also indirectly referred to a series of explosions earlier on Saturday in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory annexed by Russia in 2014.

He said: “You can literally feel Crimea in the air this year, that the occupation there is only temporary and that Ukraine is coming back.”

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-appointed governor of Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea, said a Ukrainian drone had struck a building near the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on Saturday morning.

“A drone flew onto the roof. It was flying low,” he said on Telegram. “It was downed right over the fleet headquarters. It fell on the roof and burned up. The attack failed.”

It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks. This month has also seen a number of explosions at a Russian airfield and ammunition depot on the peninsula.

Moscow’s forces there are on “high alert” and have found themselves “much more vulnerable than they thought they were”, a senior US defence official said, as reported by the Washington Post.

This weekend, fighting has intensified in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine while “powerful explosions” rocked Melitopol in the south of the country, according to local mayor Ivan Ferodov.

Also in southern Ukraine, a missile wounded 14 civilians – including four children – in Voznesensk, a town 20 miles (30km) away from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, also known as the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant.

Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, said on Telegram that the children were among the wounded – with one losing an eye – when homes including a five-storey apartment block were hit.

The attack on Voznesensk was “another act of Russian nuclear terrorism”, said state-run Energoatom, which manages Ukraine’s four nuclear energy generators.

“It is possible that this missile was aimed specifically at the Pivdennoukrainsk plant, which the Russian military tried to seize back at the beginning of March,” it said in a statement.

Russia did not immediately respond to the accusation. Reuters news agency said that it could not verify the situation in Voznesensk, and that there were no reports of damage to the South Ukraine plant.

Earlier this week, missiles hit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in an attack that Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-appointed official in the nearby town of Enerhodar, said Ukrainian forces had launched at least four strikes on the plant.

Across the Dnipro river, directly opposite the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the city of Nikopol was repeatedly shelled by Russian forces on Wednesday night, according to local mayor Yevhen Yetushenko.

Ukrainian officials said the missile attacks on the two power plants – the two biggest in Europe, and the Zaporizhzhia site the biggest in Europe – have revived fears of a nuclear disaster.