Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned his citizens of an expected further Russian attack in the remaining days of this year before 2023.
“We must be aware that our enemy will try to make this time dark and difficult for us,” he said in his daily video address on Sunday evening.
He stated that Russia had lost everything it could lose this year and added, “But it is trying to compensate for its losses with the cunning of its propagandists, after the missile attacks on our country, on our energy sector.
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“I know that darkness will not prevent us from leading the occupiers to their new defeats.
“But we must be prepared for any scenario,” he continued.
Saturday’s artillery bombardment in Kherson, in the south of the country, resulted in the deaths of at least 16 people and the wounding of 64 others, according to Zelensky’s statements.
“Brutes,” he said. “We will find every murderer.”
In the fall, Russia announced that it was annexing Kherson, but Ukrainian forces retook the city when Russian troops fled across the Dnieper River.
According to Ukrainian reports, artillery fire was launched from there against the city.
Sunday, the Ukrainian armed forces said that Russian officers were injured in an attack on a Russian command center in the Kherson region.
The army reported on Sunday that Kiev’s soldiers attacked a gathering in the village of Zabaryne, injuring at least 70 officers. The exact number of fatalities was unknown.
Since the beginning of the invasion, Ukrainian forces have frequently struck Russian command centers and command posts, locating them through monitoring radio traffic and cell phone networks.
Similar attacks have claimed the lives of other prominent Russian officers.
The Russian-appointed governor of the region, Volodymyr Saldo, denied the Ukrainian claims, maintaining that Ukrainian forces were the ones bombing the city and accused them of terrorism.
“This is repulsive provocation with the apparent aim of attributing blame to the Russian forces,” he said.
He argued that the extent of the destruction indicated artillery bombardment from Ukrainian-held territory to the city’s north and northwest.
The Kremlin argues that the entirety of the Kherson region is Russian territory that will not be ceded.
At the same time that Moscow’s soldiers are attempting to subjugate the southern region, they are also waging a fierce battle for control of eastern Ukraine, with heavy fighting over the town of Bakhmut.
However, according to a spokesperson for the Ukrainian military, Kiev’s forces inflicted “serious losses” on the invading forces.
According to Serhii Chervatko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Army Group East, since Saturday alone, at least 50 Russian soldiers have been killed and another 80 have been wounded.
It was impossible to independently verify the figures.
Bakhmut is viewed as a crucial position along the front line in eastern Ukraine, as any breakthrough here would allow Russian forces to move further beyond Ukrainian defenses. In an attempt to defend the city, Ukrainian combatants have transformed it into a fortress.
In addition to regular Russian troops, Wagner mercenaries and Chechen fighters dispatched by the republic’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov failed in their assaults on Bakhmut, according to Serhii Haidai, the chief of administration for the Luhansk area.
“They want to show the bunker grandpa (Russian President Vladimir Putin) what they can do,” he said on Telegram, adding: “But so far they are only losing thousands of soldiers who will remain there forever.”
In spite of Putin’s frequent indications that he is eager to negotiate in the Ukraine conflict, Kiev disregards his comments.
“Russia does not want negotiations and is trying to evade responsibility (for the War).
On Sunday, Zelensky’s counsel Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted, “This is obvious, so we are moving towards a tribunal,”
Kiev believes that the political and military leadership of Russia should stand trial for the war before an international tribunal modeled after the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis during World War II.
“Russia alone attacked Ukraine and is killing its citizens,” Podolyak further wrote. There are no other “sides, motives or geopolitics,” he added.
