Russian forces targeted multiple locations in southern Ukraine with artillery and rocket fire on August 21 as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Moscow could do something particularly "cruel" in the coming days as Kyiv marks 31 years of independence.
"Russia could try to do something particularly disgusting, particularly cruel," Zelenskiy said in his nightly address late August 21.
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"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 August 24 will also mark six months since Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
There have been reports that Moscow 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 August 23 to the morning of August 25.
"We will not allow any provocation by the enemy. Be as vigilant as possible during our independence holiday," Oleh Synyehubov wrote on Telegram.
Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has been under continuous Russian bombardment for weeks and on August 21 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 governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Russian naval forces also fired five missiles from the Black Sea overnight, and two of them were shot down by air defenses over the Odesa region, the regional administration said. The other three landed in an agricultural facility causing no casualties.
Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram that the city of Nikopol, which lies across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant, was shelled on five different occasions overnight.
Reznichenko said 25 artillery shells hit the city, causing a large fire at an industrial premises and cutting electricity to 3,000 inhabitants.
The southern city of Mykolayiv was hit with multiple S-300 missiles early on August 21, Vitaliy Kim, the head of the regional administration, said on Telegram.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on August 21 that sea-based Kalibr missiles had destroyed an ammunitions depot containing missiles for U.S.-made HIMARS rocket systems and other Western-made anti-aircraft systems in Ukraine's Odesa region.
The claim could not be independently verified.
In Moscow, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on August 21 that Russia has deployed hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles three times since the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
WATCH: Jokes And Anti-Tanks Mix As Ukrainian Troops Hit Russian Positions In The East
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Jokes And Anti-Tank Guns Mix As Ukrainian Troops Hit Russian Positions In The East
The Kinzhal missiles were presented in 2018 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S.-built missile shield.
Shoigu told state television the missiles had proved effective in hitting high-value targets on all three occasions.
"We have deployed it three times during the special military operation," Shoigu told Rossiya 1 channel, using Russia's preferred euphemism for the war. "And three times it showed brilliant characteristics."
Russia first announced it had used the Kinzhal one month into the war, saying it had struck a large weapons depot in Ukraine's western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
This week, the Defense Ministry said three MiG-31E warplanes armed with Kinzhal missiles had been relocated to its Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic coast located between NATO and EU members Poland and Lithuania.