In his nightly video address, Zelensky on Saturday said Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to “sow despair and fear” among them as they celebrate the 31st anniversary of independence from Soviet rule. “We should all know that this week Russia could try to do something particularly bad, something particularly vicious,” Zelensky said ahead of the anniversary on August 24, which also marks six months since the start of its full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine. Tensions are also high in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, where a curfew will be extended for the whole day on Wednesday, regional governor Oleh Synehub said on Saturday. The northeastern city is regularly hit by Russian shelling and normally has a curfew from 10pm to 6am, but extra precautions were required on Independence Day. Also on Saturday, a Russian missile struck a residential area of a southern Ukrainian city near a nuclear power plant, injuring 12 civilians, Russian and Ukrainian officials said. That strike at the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant and new bombings near the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest such facility, have raised new fears of a wartime nuclear accident, Ukrainian officials said. Zelensky in his speech also referred obliquely to a series of explosions in recent days in Crimea, the Ukrainian territory seized and annexed by Russia during a 2014 invasion. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks, but analysts said at least some were made possible by new equipment used by Ukrainian forces. “You can literally feel Crimea in the air this year, that the occupation there is only temporary and that Ukraine is coming back,” Zelensky said. In the latest attack in Crimea, the Russian-appointed governor – who is not recognized by Ukraine or Western governments – said a drone struck a building near the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on Saturday morning. Video shared on Twitter appeared to show Russian air defenses trying to destroy the UAV and dark plumes of smoke rising from the city. Mikhail Razvozayev, the governor of Sevastopol, wrote on Telegram that a drone hit the roof of the headquarters on Saturday and said there were no casualties, Russia’s Tass news agency reported. “I am in [Black Sea] fleet headquarters now. A drone hit the roof here 25 minutes ago. Unfortunately, it was not shot down… No casualties,” he wrote. Later on Saturday, Crimean governor Sergei Aksionov contradicted the earlier statement, telling Telegram that local air defenses shot down the drone over the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol. “Air defense systems successfully hit all targets above the ground over Crimea on Saturday morning. There are no casualties or material damage,” his boss, Sergey Aksionov, told Telegram. Authorities in Sevastopol said Saturday night that the city’s air defense systems had been activated again in the evening. Ukrainian media reported explosions in nearby towns – including the resorts of Yevpatoriya, Olenivka and Zaozyornoye. After the strike near the Southern Ukraine power station, Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, said on Telegram that four children were among the injured. Private homes and a five-story apartment building were damaged in Voznesensk, 30 km from the plant, Ukraine’s second largest. The general prosecutor’s office in the Mykolayiv region, updating an earlier tally, said 12 civilians were injured. State-owned Energoatom, which operates all four Ukrainian nuclear power companies, described the attack in Voznesensk as “another act of Russian nuclear terrorism”. “It is likely that this missile was specifically aimed at the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, which the Russian military tried to retake in early March,” Energoatom said in a statement. Russia did not immediately respond to the accusation. Reuters was unable to verify the situation in Voznesensk. There were no reports of damage at the southern Ukraine plant. Meanwhile, the Albanian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that three people with Russian and Ukrainian passports were arrested after they tried to break into a military base and weapons factory in central Albania. The ministry said in a statement on Saturday that two of its soldiers were injured while trying to stop them. “Three citizens with Russian and Ukrainian passports tried to enter the factory,” the ministry said in a statement sent to the media. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the three men were “suspected of espionage”.
