Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, was involved in a traffic accident in Kyiv, but he is not seriously hurt, his spokesperson said in a Facebook post early on Thursday, 15 September. Serhii Nykyforov, who did not say when the accident occurred, said Zelenskiy’s car had collided with a private vehicle, informs news media The Kyiv Independent.
«The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were found,» Nykyforov said, adding the accident would be investigated.
The accident happened after Zelensky visited the liberated city of Izium in the re–captured Kharkiv area. The presidents announced that «almost the entire region is de-occupied» after a lightning counteroffensive to dislodge Russian troops.
«It was an unprecedented movement of our soldiers – the Ukrainians once again managed to do what many thought was impossible,» Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Later Ukraine’s troops had recaptured around 8,000 square kilometres of territory.
Meanwhile, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, said the government is requesting civilians evacuate from recently liberated towns as Russian forces continue to shell the areas. According to Yanushevych, the recently liberated village of Kniazivtsi has been completely destroyed, while another settlement, Vysokopilli, is 80% destroyed, with many other towns in the oblast seeing similar levels of destruction.
Wagner Group financier Yevgeny Prigozhin is being established as the face of the Russian «special military operation» in Ukraine. Prigozhin gave a recruitment speech on Wednesday, 14 September, announcing that Russian prisoners have been participating in the war since 1 July when they were instrumental in seizing the Vuhlehirska Thermal Power Plant, as informed by the The Institute for the Study of War.
A Russian military blogger noted that Prigozhin is introducing a «Stalinist» method that allows the Kremlin to avoid ordering a general mobilization that could ignite social tensions in Russian society.
At the same time, Nikita Yuferev, one of the Russian deputies from the Smolninskoye District of St. Petersburg who called for Putin to be charged with treason on 7 September, is not backing down, CNN reports. He has already been fined in court and will be threatened with jail time next. «We will continue to insist on his resignation,» he told CNN.
U.S. senators introduce bipartisan bill to label Russia state sponsor of terrorism. «The need for this measure is more pressing now than ever before,» Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the bill’s sponsors, told a news conference, citing Russia’s brutal attacks on Ukrainian civilians, Reuters reports. U.S. President Joe Biden opposes the move, and administration officials have said the designation could even hold up humanitarian aid to Ukraine.