Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Ukrainians to be vigilant in the coming week as they prepare to celebrate their Independence Day on Wednesday. In his Saturday night video address, Zelenskiy said Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to “sow discouragement and fear” as they mark the 31st anniversary of independence from Soviet rule. “We should all be aware that this week Russia might try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” Zelenskiy said.
The curfew in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, 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 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, but extra precautions were needed on Independence Day.
Ukraine launched a new strike on Saturday against the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. Officials in the annex The Crimean Peninsula said at least one drone was shot down and that the city’s air defense system had been brought back into action on Saturday evening.
Video shared on Twitter appeared to show Russian air defenses attempting to destroy the drone and dark plumes of smoke rising from the city.
Three people with Russian and Ukrainian passports were arrested for alleged spying after trying to break into a military base and an arms factory in central Albania, the Albanian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday. Two Albanian soldiers were injured in the incident at the Gramsh base, the ministry said, adding that the soldiers’ conditions were stable. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the three individuals were “suspected of spying”.
The United States plans to buy about 150,000 metric tons of grain from Ukraine in the coming weeks for an upcoming shipment of food aid from ports no longer blocked by war, the head of the World Food Program said. The planned shipment, one of many the UN hunger relief agency is pursuing, is more than six times the amount of grain that the first WFP-organized ship from Ukraine is currently carrying to the people in the Horn of Africa threatened with starvation.
António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said he was moved by the sight of Ukrainian wheat being shipped from Turkey. Russian fertilizers and agricultural products must be able to reach world markets “unimpeded” or a global food crisis could strike as early as next year, he said.
Four children were reportedly injured following a Russian strike on a residential building in the Mykolaiv region Ukraine.
Three people with Russian and Ukrainian passports were arrested for alleged spying after trying to break into a military base and an arms factory in central Albania, the Albanian Defense Ministry announced on Saturday. Two Albanian soldiers were injured in the incident at the Gramsh base, the ministry said, adding that the soldiers’ conditions were stable. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said the three individuals were “suspected of spying”.
Russian entities and individuals were trying to use Turkey to circumvent Western sanctions imposed on the war of Moscow in Ukraine, Deputy US Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told Turkish Deputy Finance Minister Yunus Elitas, the US Treasury Department said. During a phone call, the department said, the two men also discussed efforts to implement and enforce sanctions against Russiareports Reuters.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces had killed a total of 44,900 Russian servicemen. – an increase of 200 the day before.
Olaf Scholz praised Alexei Navalny on the occasion of the second anniversary of the imprisonment Attempted poisoning of a Russian opposition politician.