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The UN’s nuclear agency has criticised “reckless attacks” endangering the safety of the Zaporizhzhia power plant in Ukraine after reports of an explosion and fire at the site.
Dark smoke could be seen rising from a cooling tower at the Russia-occupied nuclear power plant on Sunday, with Moscow and Kyiv blaming each other for starting the fire.
A Russian governor claimed the fire began with Ukrainian shelling, while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia forces had caused the fire.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog said experts “witnessed thick dark smoke” after hearing multiple explosions throughout the evening.
It comes as the Russian defence ministry said Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 30km into Russia’s Kursk region in an audacious cross-border attack that began a week ago.
Moscow said its forces were engaging the Ukrainian troops in the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez which are 25km to 30km from the border between the two countries.
Zelensky said around 2,000 cross-border attacks had been launched by Russia from Kursk this summer, acknowledging the attack directly for the first time.
Key Points
- Fire at occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
- At least 15 injured after Ukrainian missile fell on Kursk building, Russia claims
- Zelensky finally speaks out on Ukraine’s military operation in Russia’s Kursk
- Ukraine and Russia trade accusations over fire at occupied nuclear plant
- Russia evacuates over 76,000 in Kursk region amid Ukraine incursion
- Russia orders faster evacuation of civilians from Kursk
Russia evacuates parts Belgorod after Kursk
Russian authorities are evacuating parts of the Belgorod region due to “activity” in the area by Ukrainian forces, Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the southwestern Russia region that borders Ukraine said today.
Ukrainian forces have forced evacuations in the second region of Russia after the surprise Kursk attack.
Russian forces said they defended 11 drone strikes over the Kursk region.
Air defence units also destroyed five Ukraine-launched drones over the Belgorod region, the defence ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
The Belgorod region of Russia borders Ukraine and two over the Voronezh region, several hundred kilometres south of Moscow.
Shweta Sharma12 August 2024 06:03 1723438800Recap: Russia has shown its ineptitude – the West must help Ukraine finish the job
Exactly how serious President Zelensky is about his audacious counteroffensive into Russia isn’t entirely clear, and the same may be said for many of the details of the operation. However, a few salient facts are emerging from the fog of war.
The first is that it is a much more ambitious and well-resourced incursion into genuinely Russian sovereign territory than Ukraine has ever attempted before. Past raids into Russia itself have been chiefly for the purposes of mischief and propaganda. This time, the seizure of a surprising amount of Russian territory around Kursk – the advance is said to go 10km deep – is a much more significant move and goes way beyond its undoubted equal and opposite effects on Russian and Ukrainian morale, respectively.
Read the full piece here:
Russia has shown its ineptitude – the West must help Ukraine finish the job
Editorial: The shambolic invasion has proved how poorly organised, badly equipped, technologically backwards and hopelessly chaotic the supposed superpower really is
Editorial12 August 2024 06:00 1723437023Ukraine’s Kursk attack is to ‘destablise’ Russia, official says
A Ukrainian security official has said the Kursk incursion was to destabilise Russia, with thousands of troops committed to the operation.
The security official, who was not named, told AFP that it is to stretch out the Russian forces across a wide area or along a front, making it harder for them to maintain a concentrated and strong defence, with light, fast-moving attacks.
The official said thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were involved in the attack after Russian officials suggested several hundred Ukrainian troops launched the attack.
“We are on the offensive. The aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border,” the security official said.
It comes as Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the attack directly and said Russia has launched nearly 2,000 cross-border strikes on Ukraine’s Sumy and it deserved a response.
“Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response,” he said in his nightly address.
Shweta Sharma12 August 2024 05:30 1723436069Kursk governor admits Ukrainian invasion ‘challenging’
The governor of Russia’s Kursk region held a meeting with the Russian deputy defence minister on Sunday after hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers advanced into the border territory, posing one of the biggest challenges to Putin’s forces since the war began.
Governor Alexey Smirnov met the deputy defence minister Andrey Bulyga, who promised additional forces and capabilities were headed towards Kursk and the army was doing everything necessary to ensure the safety of civilians, Tass reported.
“Yes, the situation continues to be challenging. But at the same time, the Russian Defence Ministry and all uniformed agencies are taking a full range of measures to stabilise the situation in the region,” Mr Smirnov said.
Russia has said more than 8,000 people have been evacuated from the border areas and more than 6,000 have been placed in temporary accommodation centres.
Shweta Sharma12 August 2024 05:14 1723435200Recap: Putin tells 76,000 Russians to evacuate in wake of Ukrainian advance
Russia has evacuated more than 76,000 people in the Kursk region as Ukrainian troops push further into its territory.
Vladimir Putin has been forced to call in reserve troops to aid what Moscow is calling a “counterterrorism operation”.
At the same time, a federal-level emergency was declared in Russia over the incursion.
Read the full report here:
Putin tells 76,000 Russians to evacuate in the wake of Ukrainian advance
Vladimir Putin has been forced to call in reserve troops to tackle what Moscow is calling a ‘counterterrorism operation’
Tara Cobham12 August 2024 05:00 1723434424UN atomic agency says attacks at nuclear plants ‘must stop now’
The UN nuclear watchdog’s director has strongly criticised the “reckless attacks” at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after explosions were heard and a fire broke out at the site.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said: “These reckless attacks endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They must stop now.”
The watchdog said the team was informed that an alleged drone attack on one of the plant’s cooling towers took place on Sunday.
However, there is no impact on nuclear safety, he said.
IAEA Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhya (ISAMZ) has requested immediate access to the cooling tower to assess the damage.
Shweta Sharma12 August 2024 04:47 1723431600In pictures: Russian missile strike on villiage in Kyiv region that killed father and son, 4
Fire seen at Ukrainian nuclear power plant as 15 injured in Kursk drone strike
Russian forces lit a fire at the site of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
Radiation levels were normal, he said, although the blaze is visible from Ukrainian-held territory.
A local official in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol said that Russian forces were rumoured to have set fire to a large number of tyres in the cooling towers, Reuters reported. Russia claimed the fire was started by nearby shelling.
Read the full report here:
Fire seen at Ukrainian nuclear power plant as 15 injured in Kursk drone strike
Radiation levels were normal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, although the blaze is visible from Ukrainian-held territory
Tara Cobham12 August 2024 03:00 1723424400Zelenskiy: Russian strikes from Kursk region deserved fair response
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border strikes from its western Kursk region at Ukraine's Sumy region over the summer, something he said had deserved a "fair" Ukrainian response.
"Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response," the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address to the nation amid a Ukrainian cross-border incursion into the Kursk region.
Tara Cobham12 August 2024 02:00 1723420800Why Ukraine launched an audacious cross-border assault into Russia’s Kursk region
Kyiv’s audacious cross-border assault into Russia’s Kursk region has certainly ruffled feathers in Moscow. Vladimir Putin denounced it as a “large-scale provocation” while his officials have lined up to tell him the situation is under control – despite fighting continuing into a third day on Thursday and thousands of people having to evacuate the area.
Ukraine has an issue with the number of soldiers it can put on the battlefield and has been trying to up recruitment, so some may ask why it would commit resources to an incursion into Russia, especially when Moscow’s forces are putting Kyiv’s troops under pressure on other points of the 600-mile frontline, including around the key eastern town of Pokrovsk, several hundred miles away in the region of Donetsk.
Chris Stevenson writes:
Why Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on Putin’s forces in Russia’s Kursk
While this assault will not change the trajectory of the war, writes Chris Stevenson, its symbolic importance and boost to morale should not be underestimated
Tara Cobham12 August 2024 01:00 Newer1 / 6OlderDisclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
