LAST UPDATE | 21 Aug 2022

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelenskyy has warned that Russia could do something particularly “cruel” during the upcoming week as Ukraine marks 31 years of independence.

“Russia could try to do something particularly disgusting, particularly cruel,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address late last night.

“One of the key objectives of the enemy is to humiliate us,” and “to sow despondency, fear and conflict” but “we have to be strong enough to resist all provocation” and “make the occupiers pay for their terror,” he said.

Ukraine’s Independence Day on Wednesday, 24 August, will also mark six months since Russia invaded the former Soviet republic.
Ukrainians visit an avenue, where destroyed Russian military vehicles have been displayed in Kyiv Andrew Kravchenko / PA Andrew Kravchenko / PA / PA
There has been speculation that Russia will put Ukrainian fighters captured during the siege of Mariupol on trial to coincide with the independence anniversary.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the governor announced a curfew from the evening of 23 August to the morning of 25 August.

“We will not allow any provocation by the enemy. Be as vigilant as possible during our independence holiday,” Oleg Synegubov wrote on Telegram.

Kharkiv has been under regular Russian bombardment for weeks and on Sunday emergency services said two more civilians were killed in overnight strikes.

Four civilians were reported killed by Russian fire in Donetsk, said the region’s pro-Kyiv governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.

Intelligence officer found dead

Meanwhile, a regional head of Ukraine’s SBU intelligence services has been found dead at his home in central Ukraine, the prosecutor general’s office today.

Oleksandr Nakonechny was found by his wife with gunshot wounds in a room of their apartment in the city of Kropyvnytsky late yesterday after she heard gunfire, the office wrote on Telegram.

Police have opened an investigation into the death, but made no further comments.

A local politician, Andrii Lavrus, wrote on Telegram that Nakonechny had shot himself. The information could not be immediately confirmed.

Nakonechny has headed the SBU in the Kirovograd region since January 2021.

In July, Zelenskyy fired the head of the SBU, his childhood friend Ivan Bakanov, saying he did not do enough to rid the agency of spies and Russian collaborators.

Zelensky said there would be a revision of SBU personnel and several senior officials at the agency have been fired over the past several months.