An announcement launched by the intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s Defence Ministry claimed that Russian forces would strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, the largest in Europe, after which report a radioactive leak so as to set off a global probe that may pause the hostilities and provides the Russian forces the respite they should regroup forward of the counteroffensive.
In order to make that occur, Russia “disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission” of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency that was scheduled for Saturday, the assertion stated. It did not provide proof to again up any of the claims.
The IAEA stated in an emailed response to the AP that it didn’t have any speedy touch upon the allegations, and Russian officers didn’t instantly touch upon the Ukrainian claims.
The declare mirrors related statements Moscow usually makes, alleging with out proof that Kyiv is plotting provocations involving numerous harmful weapons or substances so as to then accuse Russia of warfare crimes.
It comes as Moscow’s navy in Ukraine braces for a looming counteroffensive by Kyiv’s forces, which hasn’t began but however may start “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the BBC in an interview Saturday.
The Zaporizhzhia power plant is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. It is located in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine. The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Fighting near it repeatedly disrupted power supplies and has fuelled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
— Russia on Saturday reported more attacks on its territory, with drones crashing in its western regions and areas on the border with Ukraine coming under shelling.
Two drones attacked an administrative building of an oil company in Russia’s western Pskov region that borders Belarus, Latvia and Estonia, Pskov Gov. Mikhail Vedernikov reported Saturday. The building was damaged as the result of an explosion, Vedernikov said.
Another drone went down in the Tver region about 150 kilometres north of Moscow, local authorities said.
Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Saturday came under multiple rounds of shelling, according to its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. In the neighbouring Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine, one person was killed by cross-border mortar fire, its Gov. Roman Starovoit said.
— The British military said on Saturday that Russia’s private military force, Wagner, is withdrawing from areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut that Moscow claims to have captured earlier this month.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin earlier this week announced the pullout, saying Wagner would hand control over the ruined city over to the Russian military. Some were skeptical, however: Prigozhin is known for making unverifiable, headline-grabbing statements on which he later backtracks.
But the British Defence Ministry said in a series of tweets Saturday that Wagner fighters “have doubtless began to withdraw from a few of their positions” around Bakhmut. “The Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister additionally corroborated the rotation out of Wagner forces within the outskirts of the city,” the ministry stated.
Source: www.9news.com.au
