Kyiv: As Kyiv marks 31 years of independence for the war-ravaged country next week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Sunday that Russia might take the provocative step of putting Ukrainian soldiers on trial. Zelensky cited media reports that Russia was preparing to put Ukrainian fighters captured during the siege of Mariupol on a public trial to coincide with the independence anniversary Wednesday.
Ukraine’s Independence Day, August 24, will also mark six months since Russia invaded the former Soviet republic, in a devastating war that has cost thousands of lives. ‘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’, Zelensky warned in an evening address. ‘This will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible’, Zelensky said.
The capital Kyiv has already announced a ban on public gatherings. Kharkiv too, declared a curfew around the holiday. Zelensky was returning to a subject he had already raised in the previous night’s remarks. ‘Russia could try to do something particularly disgusting, particularly cruel’, he warned late Saturday. ‘One of the key objectives of the enemy is to humiliate us, and to sow despondency, fear and conflict. We have to be strong enough to resist all provocation and make the occupiers pay for their terror’, he added.
Meanwhile, a presidential adviser, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said Russia could intensify its bombing campaign. ‘Russia is an archaic state that links its actions to certain dates, it’s an obsession of sorts’, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted him as saying. ‘They hate us and will try to increase… the number of bombings of our cities including Kyiv with cruise missiles’, Podolyak added.
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