Southern city of Nikopol near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant repeatedly shelled overnight; Zelenskiy warns Russia against putting Ukrainian soldiers on public trial
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Ukraine is bracing itself for an intensification of Russian missile attacks to coincide with its independence day on Wednesday. The country’s military warned that Russia had put five cruise missile-bearing warships and submarines out in the Black Sea and that Moscow was positioning air defence systems in Belarus. Large gatherings have been banned in Kyiv for four days from Monday. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that “Russia may try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious” this week as the country celebrates its 31st anniversary of independence.
Artillery shells rained down on the Ukrainian city of Nikopol, close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, overnight. Nikopol was shelled on five different occasions, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram. He said 25 artillery shells hit the city, causing a fire at an industrial premises and cutting power to 3,000 people.
Russian missiles hit targets near Odesa, Ukrainian officials said. Five Russian Kalibr cruise missiles were fired from the Black Sea at the region overnight, the regional administration spokesperson said, citing information from the southern military command. Two were shot down by Ukrainian air defences and three hit agricultural targets, but there were no casualties. Russia said on Sunday the missiles had destroyed an ammunition depot containing missiles for US-made Himars rockets, while Kyiv said a granary had been hit.
The daughter of an ultranationalist Russian ideologue and ally of Vladimir Putin was killed in a car bomb on the outskirts of Moscow on Saturday night. Darya Dugina, whose father is the Russian political commentator Alexander Dugin, died when the Toyota Land Cruiser she was driving was ripped apart by a powerful explosion about 12 miles (20km) west of the capital near the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy at about 9.30pm local time (1930 BST), according to investigators.
A former member of Russia’s Duma has claimed that Russian partisans were allegedly behind the car bomb attack. Ilya Ponomarev, who was expelled for anti-Kremlin activities, alleged the explosion was the work of the National Republican Army, which he claimed was an underground group working inside Russia and dedicated to overthrowing the Putin regime. “This attack opens a new page in Russian resistance to Putinism,” he said.
Zelenskiy warned Russia against putting Ukrainian soldiers captured during the siege of Mariupol on trial. “If this despicable court takes place, if our people are brought into these settings in violation of all agreements, all international rules, there will be abuse,” he said in a Sunday evening address. “This will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible.”
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and the US urged military restraint around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. In a phone call, the four leaders also called for a “quick visit” to the nuclear site by independent inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s spokesperson.
Four more ships carrying food left Ukraine’s ports, Turkey’s defence ministry said, bringing the total number of vessels to leave Ukraine’s Black Sea ports under a UN-brokered grain export deal to 31.
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