প্রকাশ: 08/08/2022
Ukraine said on Sunday that renewed Russian shelling had
damaged three radiation sensors and hurt a worker at the Zaporizhzhia power
plant, in the second hit in consecutive days on Europe’s largest nuclear
facility.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Saturday
night’s shelling “Russian nuclear terror” that warranted more international
sanctions, this time on Moscow’s nuclear sector.
“There is no such nation in the world that could feel safe
when a terrorist state fires at a nuclear plant,” Zelenskiy said in a televised
address on Sunday.
However, the Russian-installed authority of the area said it
was Ukraine that hit the site with a multiple rocket launcher, damaging
administrative buildings and an area near a storage facility.
Reuters could not verify either side’s version.
Events at the Zaporizhzhia site - where Kyiv had previously
alleged that Russia hit a power line on Friday - have alarmed the world.
“(It) underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster,”
International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi warned on
Saturday.
Elsewhere, a deal to unblock Ukraine’s food exports and ease
global shortages gathered pace as another four ships sailed out of Ukrainian
Black Sea ports while the first cargo vessel since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion
docked.
The four outgoing ships had almost 170,000 tonnes of corn
and other food. They were sailing under a deal brokered by the United Nations
and Turkey to try to help ease soaring global food prices that have resulted
from the war.
Before Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion, which Russian President
Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation”, Russia and Ukraine
together accounted for nearly a third of global wheat exports. The disruption
since then has threatened famine in some parts of the world.
Battle For Donbas
Putin’s troops are trying to gain full control of the Donbas
region of east Ukraine where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the
Kremlin annexed Crimea to the south in 2014.
Russian forces stepped up their attacks north and northwest
of Donetsk city in the Donbas on Sunday, Ukraine’s military said. The Russians
attacked Ukrainian positions near the heavily fortified settlements of Piski
and Avdiivka, as well as shelling other locations in the Donetsk region, it
said.
In addition to tightening its grip over the Donbas, Russia
is entrenching its position in southern Ukraine, where it has gathered troops
in a bid to prevent a potential counter-offensive near Kherson, Kyiv has said.
As the fighting rages, Russians installed in the wake of
Moscow’s invasion have toyed with the idea of joining Ukraine’s occupied
territory to Russia. Last month, a senior pro-Russian official said a
referendum on such a move was likely “towards next year.”
In his video address, Zelenskiy said that any
“pseudo-referendums” on occupied areas of his country joining Russia would
eliminate the possibility of talks between Moscow and its Ukrainian
counterparts or their allies.
“They will close for themselves any change of talks with
Ukraine and the free world which the Russian side will clearly need at some
point,” Zelenskiy said.
Also Sunday, Ukraine’s chief war crimes prosecutor said
almost 26,000 suspected war crimes committed since the invasion were being
investigated, with 135 people charged, of whom 15 were in custody. Russia
denies targeting civilians.
Shelling and missile strikes were reported overnight in the
Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and around military sites in the western region of
Vinnitsya, among other places, Ukrainian authorities said. There was no
immediate word on casualties.
Beyond Ukraine, a proxy battle played out at the
International Chess Federation where former Russian deputy prime minister
Arkady Dvorkovich won a second term as president, defeating Ukraine’s Andrii
Baryshpolets.
And after days of controversy, Amnesty International
apologised for “distress and anger” caused by a report accusing Ukraine of
endangering civilians. That had infuriated Zelenskiy and prompted the head of
the rights group’s Ukraine office to resign.
- Reuters
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