Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Kremlin-based officials in occupied southern Ukraine celebrated Russia Day on Sunday and began issuing Russian passports to city residents who asked them to do so as Moscow tried to consolidate. his dominion over the captured parts of the country.
In one of the central squares of the city of Kherson, Russian bands played a concert to celebrate Russia Day, the holiday that marks the emergence of Russia as a sovereign state after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-based officials hoisted a Russian flag in the center of the city of Melitopol.
Ukrainian media reported that few local residents, if any, attended Russia Day celebrations in the two cities.
Russia Day was also celebrated in other occupied parts of Ukraine, including the devastated southern port of Mariupol, where a new city sign painted with the colors of the Russian flag on the outskirts was unveiled and Russian flags waved. to a road leading to the city. .
In addition, the Russian-aligned administration in Melitopol began issuing Russian passports to those who applied for Russian citizenship. RIA Novosti released a video of a Moscow-backed official congratulating the new Russian citizens and saying, “Russia is not going anywhere. We are here forever.”
President Vladimir Putin earlier this year issued a decree to accelerate Russian citizenship for residents of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. In the captured cities in the south and east, Moscow has also introduced the ruble as its official currency, issued Russian news broadcasts and taken steps to introduce a Russian school curriculum.
Kremlin administrators in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have expressed plans to incorporate the areas into Russia, despite protests and signs of insurgency among local residents.
Officials based in Russia on Sunday in Melitopol reported an explosion in a rubbish bin near the city’s police headquarters and said two residents were injured.
Another explosion occurred at an electrical substation in the city of Berdyansk, which is also under Russian control. The Kremlin-backed administration said it was a terrorist attack, and officials said electricity was cut off in parts of the city.
On the battlefield, Russia said it was using missiles to destroy a large tank in western Ukraine that contained anti-tank and air defense weapons supplied to Kyiv by the United States and European countries. He said the attack took place near the city of Chortkiv in the Ternopil region.
Ternopil Governor Volodymyr Trush said four Russian missiles had damaged a military facility and four residential buildings in Chortkiv. More than 20 people were injured, including a 12-year-old girl, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“This strike had no tactical or strategic meaning, as did the vast majority of other Russian attacks. It’s terror, just terror,” he said in a video address.
In light of the attack, Zelenskyy made another request for modern missile defense systems in the United States and other Western countries, saying: “These are lives that could have been saved, tragedies that could have been avoided if Ukraine would have been heard. “
In addition, heavy fighting continued for control of Sievierodonetsk, a city in eastern Luhansk Oblast with a pre-war population of 100,000 that has become the center of Russia’s campaign to capture the Donbas. , the industrial center of Ukraine.
Russian forces bombed a chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk that held up to 500 civilians, 40 of them children, Luhansk Governor Serhii Haidai said.
Rodion Miroshnik, an official from the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic, pro-Moscow, said between 300 and 400 Ukrainian soldiers also remained inside the plant. He said efforts are being made to evacuate civilians.
Leonid Pasechnik, head of the People’s Republic of Lugansk, said that Ukrainians taking their position in Sievierodonetsk should be spared trouble.
“If I were them, I would already make the decision” to surrender, he said. “We will achieve our goal in any case.”
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This story has been corrected to show that a 12-year-old girl, not a boy, was wounded in a missile attack in Chortkiv.