Zelensky warns of ‘ugly’ Russian attack

A girl stands on top of destroyed Russian military equipment at Khreshchatyk street in Kyiv, turned into an open-air military museum on Saturday ahead of Ukraine’s Independence Day on August 24. Pic/AFP

President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Ukrainians to be vigilant ahead of Wednesday's celebrations to mark 31 years of independence from Soviet rule, as fresh blasts hit Crimea and a missile wounded 12 civilians near a nuclear power plant.

Ukrainians must not allow Moscow to "spread despondency and fear" ahead of the Aug. 24 events, which also come six months after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky said on Saturday.

"We must all be aware that this week Russia could try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious," Zelensky said in nightly remarks on video.

Curfew in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, is to be extended for the entire day on Wednesday, said regional Governor Oleh Synehub. The curfew usually runs from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the northeastern city, regularly hit by Russian shelling. "Remain at home and take heed of warnings!" Synehub wrote to residents on the Telegram messaging app.

New blasts resounded in the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula on Saturday and a Russian missile hit a residential area of a southern Ukrainian town not far from a nuclear power station, wounding 12 civilians, Russian and Ukrainian officials said. That strike at the Pivdennoukrainsk (South Ukraine) nuclear station and fresh shelling near the Zaporizhzhia station, Europe's largest such facility, prompted new fears of a nuclear accident during the war, Ukrainian officials said. The Russian-appointed governor not recognised by the West said a drone had struck a building near the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet on Saturday morning.

Russia has deployed hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles three times over the course of what Moscow calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Sunday. The Kinzhal missiles are part of new hypersonic weapons President Vladimir Putin presented in 2018 in a bellicose speech in which he said they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield.

Daughter of ‘Putin's brain' killed

Investigators at the site of explosion of a car driven by Daria Dugina. Pic/AP

The daughter of a Russian nationalist ideologist who is often referred to as ‘Putin's brain' was killed when her car exploded on the outskirts of Moscow, officials said Sunday.

The Investigative Committee branch for the Moscow region said the Saturday night blast was caused by a bomb planted in the SUV driven by Daria Dugina.

The 29-year-old was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a prominent proponent of the ‘Russian world' concept ideology and a vehement supporter of Russia's sending of troops into Ukraine.

Dugina expressed similar views and had appeared as a commentator on the nationalist TV channel Tsargrad. The explosion took place as Dugina was returning from a cultural festival she had attended with her father. Some Russian media reports cited witnesses as saying the vehicle belonged to her father and that he had decided at the last minute to travel in another car.

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