Ukraine marks its 31st Independence Day today as well as the six-month mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24.For many, the day represents resilience and defiance, as captured Russian tanks and other military equipment sit on display in Kyiv’s main boulevard, half a year after Moscow expected the capital to fall within days.Ukrainian and U.S. officials have warned of stepped up Russian attacks on this day, keeping the country on high alert with a ban on large gatherings in Kyiv for most of the week.Meanwhile, President Joe Biden announced a nearly $3 billion new security assistance package for Ukraine, its biggest yet.The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that five ships carrying grains and other crops were approved to depart Ukrainian ports on Thursday.The vessel Ascanios is carrying 58,510 metric tons of corn and is destined for Germany. The vessel Mohamad is carrying 11,000 metric tons of wheat and is destined for Israel. The ship named Bellis will also travel to Israel and is carrying 6,000 metric tons of soybeans. The vessel Oris Sofi is transporting 5,900 metric tons of sunflower oil to Turkey. Another ship, Zelek Star is also destined for Turkey and is transporting 3,700 metric tons of peas.In total, the five vessels are carrying 85,110 metric tons of grain and food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said potential Russian war crimes are mounting in Ukraine.“The evidence of Russian forces interrogating, detaining, and forcibly deporting hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, including children, continues to mount. Their reasons are clear: They want to destroy Ukraine – its culture, its people, its very existence,” Thomas-Greenfield said during a U.N. Security Council meeting.“For all this violence and carnage, these hunger and humanitarian crises, these human rights abuses and threats to vulnerable groups. Russia and Russia alone bears sole responsibility,” she added.Thomas-Greenfield called on the international forum to hold Russia accountable.National security council spokesman John Kirby said that U.S. intelligence indicates that Russia may try to hold “sham referendums” as early as this week.Kirby told reporters that the referendums are a way of Russia trying to show that the Ukrainian people want to become part of Russia. Kirby said that the U.S. believes that the referendums may begin in Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk.Kirby added that the Biden administration will not view the outcome of the referendum as legitimate.“Since they obviously are having trouble achieving geographic gains inside Ukraine, they are trying to gain that through false political means,” Kirby told reporters.“We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda, to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia,” he added.The World Health Organization warned that Russia’s war has severely impacted Ukraine’s ability to provide adequate healthcare.“No system can deliver optimum health to its people under the stress of war, which is why we continue to call on the Russian Federation to end this war,” said Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General in a statement.“Though shaken, the health system has not collapsed,” said Ghebreyesus, adding that the WHO will continue to support the Ministry of Health of Ukraine to restore disrupted services, displaced health workers and destroyed infrastructure.He said that so far the WHO has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of critical medical supplies to Ukraine. The supplies include power generators, ambulances, oxygen supplies for medical facilities, supplies for trauma and emergency surgeries and medicine to help treat non-communicable diseases. Ukraine’s president says Russian forces have launched a rocket attack on a railroad station in central Ukraine on the country’s Independence Day, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 50.The lethal strike came after warnings from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in recent days that the Russians might “try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel” this week.Wednesday is a national holiday in Ukraine commemorating the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It also marks the six-month point in the war against Russia.The Biden administration announced approximately $3 billion in security assistance for Ukraine on Wednesday.The announcement of the upcoming military aid package, the 19th such installment, comes as Ukraine celebrates 31 years of its independence from the Soviet Union.The package consists of six additional National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, as well as munitions for those systems, 24 counter-artillery radars, 245,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition, 65,000 rounds of 120 mm mortar ammunition, laser-guided rocket systems, support equipment for the Scan Eagle drone as well as Puma drones.New to this security package is the Vampire drone. It was not immediately clear how many the Pentagon would provide.So far, the U.S. has committed more than $13.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since January 2021.United Nations Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo warned that Ukrainians will need additional support as the harsh winter season approaches.“As winter approaches the destruction caused by war, combined with the lack of access to electricity due to damaged infrastructure could become a matter of life or death,” DiCarlo said during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council“The United Nations estimates that 1.7 million people are already in need of urgent assistance with heating, shelter repair and other winterization preparations as temperatures in parts of the country are expected to decline to minus 20 degrees Celsius,” she added.DiCarlo said U.N. organizations were working with Ukraine to address their winterzation efforts.cnbc.com