Prior to Wednesday’s celebrations marking 31 years of independence from Soviet domination, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy advised Ukrainians to exercise caution as new blasts hit Crimea and a missile injured 12 residents close to a nuclear power station.
In advance of the Aug. 24 events, which also occur six months after Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to “promote melancholy and terror,” Zelenskiy warned on Saturday.
In his nightly statements captured on tape, Zelenskiy stated, “We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something especially terrible, something particularly vicious.”According to regional governor Oleh Synehub, the curfew in Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, would be extended for the entire day on Wednesday.
The city in the northeast, which is frequently shelled by Russia, generally has a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.A Russian missile also struck a residential section of a southern Ukrainian town not far from a nuclear power plant on Saturday, inflicting 14 civilian injuries, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials.
The attack on the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in South Ukraine and recent shelling close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, Zaporizhzhia, have rekindled worries of a nuclear accident, according to Ukrainian officials.In his remarks, Zelenskiy also made a passing reference to a recent spate of explosions in Crimea, the Ukrainian region that Russia invaded in 2014.
