Events marking Ukraine’s Independence Day on Wednesday have been banned in the country’s capital, Kyiv, and second-largest city, Kharkiv, as officials warn Russia could launch missile attacks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Saturday that Russia may be planning something “nasty” to coincide with the day, which will mark 31 years since Ukraine severed ties with the Soviet Union. “We should all know that this week Russia could try to do something particularly bad, something particularly vicious,” Zelensky said in a video message. In Kyiv, the city’s military administration banned all gatherings between Monday and Thursday, saying “mass events, peaceful meetings, gatherings and other events related to a large gathering of people are prohibited.” General Mykola Zhyrnov, head of Kyiv’s military command, said the order was imposed so that the security forces could respond “in a timely manner to threats of missile and bomb attacks by the troops of the Russian Federation on decision-making centers, military installations. defense industry, critical infrastructure and nearby residential areas’. Zhynov said he instructed city authorities to use the minimum necessary number of officials, civil servants and workers to ensure transport and other services. In Kharkiv, where relentless, indiscriminate Russian attacks killed and wounded hundreds of civilians in the first months of the war, authorities announced a curfew from 7 p.m. local time on the eve of Independence Day until 7 a.m. the following day. “We ask that you understand such measures and prepare to stay at home and in shelters — this is our security,” authorities said. Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, said Sunday that “the date of our independence and the anniversary of the invasion, half a year, coincide — it’s the 24th. And it’s Ukrainian flag day, the 23rd. We they are prepared for the fact that there will be an increase in some kind of aggression, there will be an increase in missile attacks.” In the past week, Ukrainian officials said more Russian missiles have been deployed at an air base in Belarus.
