Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned citizens of Ukraine to stay vigilant ahead of the country's celebrations marking 31 years of independence from Soviet rule. Zelenskyy, in his nightly address to the nation, said, "We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious," Reuters reported. He said that Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to "spread despondency and fear".
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Synehub said the curfew for the city will be extended for the entire day on Wednesday when the nation will celebrate independence day. The curfew in the region regularly hit by Russian shelling is usually from 10 pm to 6 am.
On Saturday, a Russian missile hit a residential area of a southern Ukrainian town, wounding 14 people. "You can literally feel Crimea in the air this year, that the occupation there is only temporary and that Ukraine is coming back," Zelenskyy said, referring to recent explosions in Crimea, the Ukrainian region Russia annexed in 2014. Ukraine hasn't claimed responsibility for the explosions. But, experts have said that some of them have been made with help of new equipment by the new equipment used by Ukrainian forces.
In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defences shot down a drone above the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks and followed explosions at a Russian airfield and ammunition depot on the peninsula this month. The incidents underlined Russian forces' vulnerability in Crimea. This week, a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea was hit by an explosion.
Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an airbase in Crimea. Meanwhile, fighting in southern Ukrainian areas just north of Crimea has stepped up in recent weeks as Ukrainian forces try to drive Russian forces out of cities they have occupied since early in the six-month-old war. A Russian missile attack wounded 12 people, including three children, and damaged houses and an apartment block on Saturday in the town of Voznesensk in the Mykolaiv region, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office said. A Ukrainian airstrike, meanwhile, hit targets in Melitopol, the largest Russian-controlled city in the Zaporizhzhia region, 100 kilometres north of Crimea, according to Ukrainian and Russia-installed local officials.
The Ukrainian military on Saturday said it had destroyed a prized Russian radar system and other equipment stationed in occupied areas in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. Russian shelling killed seven civilians Friday in Donetsk province, including four in Bakhmut, Gov.Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Saturday on Telegram.
--With PTI inputs
