Zelensky Issues A Warning About A Russian Attack Before Ukraine's Independence Day
Zelensky Issues A Warning About A Russian Attack Before Ukraine's Independence Day
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In light of recent blasts in Crimea and a missile that injured 12 citizens close to a nuclear power plant, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday urged Ukrainians to exercise caution as they prepare to celebrate their Independence Day.

Zelensky warned Ukrainians not to allow Moscow to “spread melancholy and terror” among them as they commemorated their 31st anniversary of independence from Soviet control in his nightly video address.

Prior to the anniversary on August 24, which also marks six months since the start of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky warned that Russia “may attempt to do something very horrible, something particularly vicious.”

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Twelve civilians were injured by a Russian missile that struck a residential section in a southern Ukrainian town not far from a nuclear power plant on Saturday, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials.

According to Ukrainian officials, the attack on the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in South Ukraine and recent shelling in the area of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest such facility, have raised additional concerns about a nuclear disaster during the war.

In his speech, Zelensky also made a passing reference to a string of explosions that had occurred recently in Crimea, the Ukrainian area that Russia invaded in 2014 and then occupied and annexed.

Although Ukraine hasn’t taken credit for the attacks, researchers suggest that at least some of them were made feasible by the use of new equipment by Ukrainian soldiers.

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According to Zelensky, “Crimea is literally in the air this year, that the occupation there is only transitory, and that Ukraine is coming back.”

The latest incident in Crimea was reported by the Russian-appointed governor who is not recognised by the West. He said that on Saturday morning, a drone had damaged a structure close to the Black Sea Fleet headquarters.

The area’s anti-aircraft system has resumed functioning, according to Razvozhayev, who afterwards requested locals to stop documenting and sharing images of it in action.

The resort towns of Yevpatoriya, Olenivka, and Zaozyornoye were among those affected, according to Ukrainian media reports on explosions.

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Those Hurt Included Children

Vitaliy Kim, the governor of the Mykolaiv district, announced on Telegram that four children were among the injured after the attack close to the South Ukraine power station. In Voznesensk, which is 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the facility, private residences and a five-story apartment building were destroyed.

Twelve civilians had been hurt, according to an update from the general prosecutor’s office in the Mykolaiv region on an earlier death toll.

The attack on Voznesensk was labelled “another act of Russian nuclear terrorism” by state-run Energoatom, which oversees all four of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.

According to a statement from Energoatom, it’s conceivable that the missile was particularly targeted at the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, which the Russian military attempted to take at the beginning of March.

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The charge did not receive an instant response from Russia. The situation in Voznesensk could not be confirmed by Reuters. There were no reports of any harm to the facility in South Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine continue to accuse one other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia station, which Russia has controlled since March.

At least four attacks on the plant, according to Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed administrator in the neighbouring town of Enerhodar. Russian soldiers have frequently shelled the town, according to Yevhen Yetushenko, the mayor of Ukrainian-controlled Nikopol on the other bank of the Dnipro River.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a nuclear power agency of the United Nations, has been discussing a visit to the plant for more than a week.

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Russian military have been ordered to evacuate the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to a request made by Ukrainian authorities to the UN and other international organisations.

In addition, authorities in Mariupol, a town in eastern Ukraine that Russia now controls following weeks of shelling, reported that Konstantin Ivashchenko, the newly appointed mayor by Russia, had escaped an assassination attempt.

According to Petro Andryushchenko, a member of the deposed city council, “It didn’t work.” However, this is just the beginning.