Ukraine Says Missile Strike Kills 22 as Country Marks Subdued Independence Day

In the afternoon, Russian missiles hit a house in the town, killing an 11-year-old boy, Ukrainian officials said. Missiles later struck the train station, setting five train passenger cars alight, killing another 21 and injuring 22, officials said.

Russia, which didn’t immediately comment on the strike, has said it doesn’t target civilians, even as Russian missiles have hit cities far from the front lines.

Earlier, in a prerecorded video delivered to mark Independence Day, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine would liberate all of its lands from Russian occupation. He said the country had been reborn, and is fighting valiantly for a future independent from Moscow, its longtime overlord.

The president’s address channeled the pain of the loss of thousands of soldiers and civilians in the war, but also fresh optimism that Ukrainian forces have retaken the initiative. Wednesday also marks the six-month anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory,” Mr. Zelensky said. He stood amid charred Russian armored vehicles on Kyiv’s main boulevard, where in previous years parades involving the military have celebrated Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991.

Mr. Zelensky’s address came as the White House unveiled its biggest weapons-assistance package yet from the U.S. to the country.

The $3 billion more in security aid to Ukraine will include air-defense systems, artillery systems and munitions, counter-unmanned aerial systems and radar, the White House said. It also includes funding to train Ukrainian forces for months on how to use Western weapons, U.S. defense officials said.

“Today and every day, we stand with the Ukrainian people to proclaim that the darkness that drives autocracy is no match for the flame of liberty that lights the souls of free people everywhere,” President Biden said in announcing the package and marking Ukraine’s Independence Day.

The announcement marked the 19th aid package since Russia invaded Ukraine exactly six months ago. Taken together, the packages total nearly $11 billion. Among the most consequential weapons the U.S. has sent to Ukraine are at least 16 long-range rocket systems known as Himars, which have enabled Ukrainian troops to strike Russian targets, including ammunition and fuel depots, from further behind the front lines.

The latest security assistance package is designed to help Ukraine build its military in the long term, the Pentagon said Wednesday, and streamline the dozens of systems provided by allies since the Feb. 24 invasion. Before the war, the Ukrainian military largely consisted of Soviet-era systems. In the past six months, much of the weapons and munitions delivered to help Ukraine defend itself have come from North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states.

“What does the future force of Ukraine look like? It’s sustainable,” Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said during a Pentagon briefing Wednesday. “We’re very focused here on helping Ukraine try to plan out what is kind of a rational force of the future, and I would anticipate a lot of NATO- standard” weapons.

In the coming weeks the Biden administration plans to name its military mission supporting Ukraine and appoint a general officer to lead the training and assistance effort, U.S. officials said. The naming of the operation formally recognizes the U.S. effort within the military, akin to how the Pentagon dubbed the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.

Outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv on Wednesday to underscore his country’s “unwavering, long-term support,” his office said. He unveiled a new military-aid package for Ukraine of 2,000 surveillance and attack drones worth the equivalent of around $64 million.

The streets of Kyiv were emptier than usual Wednesday, and many businesses were closed as a precaution. No mass events were planned amid warnings from Western and Ukrainian officials that Russia could escalate attacks. Officials in several cities have called for heightened awareness and additional curfews to encourage residents to stay home.

Hundreds of people defied concerns that Russia would target the capital to look at the Russian vehicles.

Viktoria Skovroska expressed satisfaction at the sight. “We are not afraid because we have complete faith in our defenders, the armed forces of Ukraine,” said Ms. Skovroska, who wore a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt. “Our soldiers have done everything so we can feel protected and free.”

In his address, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine wouldn’t negotiate with Russia and would fight to regain all of the country “without any concessions or compromises.”

Ukraine has used long-range rocket systems and sabotage teams to target Russian ammunition depots and command posts well behind the front lines to throttle supplies to Russian forces.

Overnight, Ukrainian forces struck an ammunition dump in Russian-occupied Tokmak, a transport hub in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian officials said. On Wednesday, Ukraine again struck a bridge in Nova Kakhovka, according to a local official, part of a strategy aimed at cutting off Russian forces on the western bank of the Dnipro River.

Ukrainian special forces and partisans have also been hitting targets in occupied territories. Ivan Sushko, the Russia-installed leader of the town of Mykhailivka in the Zaporizhzhia region, was killed after his car exploded, a fellow collaborator called Vladimir Rogov wrote on social media Wednesday morning. Mr. Rogov blamed Ukraine for the killing. Ukraine didn’t comment.

U.S. officials have been saying Russia might hold fake referendums in Ukraine in an attempt to show that Ukrainians in those areas are pro-Russian. On Wednesday, the White House said they were sharing intelligence publicly that these “sham referenda” could begin soon, including in Severodonetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Kherson.

“These referenda could begin in a matter of days or weeks, in fact we could see a Russian announcement on the first one or ones before the end of this week,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said on Wednesday. “We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia.”

Russia’s assault in the east has stalled in recent weeks. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Wednesday that Russian forces were purposefully holding back to protect civilians.

“That slows the pace of our attack, but we are doing it consciously,” he told a meeting of leaders of a regional security bloc in Uzbekistan, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

Russia has left several cities in eastern Ukraine largely destroyed in barrages from artillery and warplanes that have allowed ground forces to inch forward.

Russian authorities on Wednesday detained Yevgeny Roizman, one of the last prominent Kremlin critics who hasn’t fled Russia or been jailed.

Russian state news agencies said the former mayor of the city of Yekaterinburg, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was detained for discrediting the Russian armed forces.

“The whole point of this is that I called a war a war, that’s all,” Mr. Roizman told reporters as he was taken from his apartment by law-enforcement officers, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Russia passed a law in early March that threatens prison time for anyone publishing what authorities consider to be false information about the country’s invasion of Ukraine, which the Kremlin describes as a special military operation.

Russian officials and public figures on Tuesday called for revenge for the death of Daria Dugina, the daughter of a far-right ideologue, in a car bombing earlier this week. Russia has blamed Ukrainian intelligence services for her killing, while Ukrainian officials have denied involvement and suggested it was the result of infighting among Russian elites.

Pope Francis, speaking at his weekly public audience at the Vatican on Wednesday morning, made an apparent reference to the death of Ms. Dugina.

“I think of a poor girl blown up by a bomb under the seat of her car in Moscow. The innocent pay for war,” the pope said.

The pope, while deploring the suffering of Ukrainians from Russia’s invasion and expressing a desire to visit Ukraine, has resisted taking sides in the conflict.

—Mauro Orru, Tarini Parti and Gordon Lubold contributed to this article.

Write to James Marson at james.marson@wsj.com, Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com