(CNN) — The US government called on Americans in Ukraine to leave the country immediately, warning that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch attacks on civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days.
“The US embassy urges US citizens to depart Ukraine now using available private ground transportation options if it is safe to do so,” said a security alert on the embassy website.
“The security situation throughout Ukraine is highly volatile and conditions can deteriorate without warning.”
The renewed US warning comes as Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine nears the six-month mark on Wednesday and follows similar warnings, from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials, that Moscow may lead carried out intense attacks, including missile strikes, to coincide with Ukraine’s Independence Day on Wednesday.
“We all need to be aware that this week Russia might try to do something particularly ugly, something particularly vicious,” Zelensky said in a video message over the weekend.
In Kyiv, the city’s military administration issued a ban on all large gatherings between Monday and Thursday, saying “it is forbidden to hold mass events, peaceful gatherings, rallies and other events related to a large gathering of people.”
Gen. Mykola Zhyrnov, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the order was imposed so that security forces could respond “in a timely manner to threats of missile and bomb attacks by Russian Federation troops on the ground.” decision-making centers, military installations, defense industry facilities, critical infrastructure, and nearby residential areas.”
Last week, the State Department said it had summoned Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov to a meeting so that the United States “could warn Russia against any escalation of its war against Ukraine,” a department spokesman said Monday. .
This included calling on Russia to “cease all military operations at or near Ukraine’s nuclear facilities and return full control of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to Ukraine,” the official added.
Kyiv and Moscow have made a barrage of mutual accusations about security and military actions at and around the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear complex. But the lack of independent access to the plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March, makes it impossible to verify what is happening there.
Recent satellite images from Maxar Technologies of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant show no signs of “systemic bombardment,” despite claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian military was carrying out repeated military strikes on the plant.
Tensions in the war increased this week with the death of Darya Dugina, a Russian political commentator and daughter of prominent ultra-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin.
Russia has blamed the Ukrainian special services for his murder, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
“The murder of journalist Darya Dugina has been solved, it was prepared by the Ukrainian special services, by a citizen of Ukraine,” TASS reported, citing Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which named a woman as the perpetrator and said that she had fled to Estonia after the attack.
Ukraine has denied any involvement in Dugina’s murder and said the FSB’s claims were just fiction.
Dugina, the editor of a Russian disinformation website, died after a bomb planted in a car she was driving exploded outside Moscow on Saturday night.
Dugina’s father, Alexander Dugin, is a prominent Russian nationalist credited with being the architect or “spiritual guide” of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
CNN’s Manveena Suri, Jack Guy, Tim Lister, Uliana Pavlova and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.