Ukraine claims Russian rockets have damaged a part of a massive Russian-controlled nuclear power plant.
Kyiv:
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday accused Russia of using the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant “for terror” after the facility’s operator reported major damage at the site.
Energoatum, operator of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in the country’s south, said on Saturday that parts of the facility had been “severely damaged” by military strikes and forced the shutdown of one of its reactors.
Energoatom on Telegram’s messaging service said Friday’s strike had damaged a station containing nitrogen and oxygen and an auxiliary building.
As hostilities escalated in the east and south of Ukraine, pro-Moscow officials in the Russian-occupied Kherson region reported the killing of a senior officer.
And the head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine office announced that he had resigned from the organization over the group’s publication of a controversial report accusing the country’s military of endangering civilians.
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the attacks on the Zaporizhzhya plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power complex.
In his Saturday night address, Zelensky once again accused Moscow of terrorism, saying “Russian terrorists were the first in the world to use power plants… to terrorize.”
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog expressed concern over the shelling at the plant. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi said the attacks underscored the “real risk of a nuclear disaster”.
“Any military shelling directed at or from the facility would amount to play with fire with potentially disastrous consequences,” he said.
European Union’s top diplomat Josep Borrell condemned the attack as “a serious and irresponsible violation of nuclear security rules and another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms”.
one more murder
Russian state media reported that an officer of the Russian occupation authorities in Kherson died in hospital on Saturday after being shot.
According to TASS, Yekaterina Gubareva, deputy head of the civil-military administration of Russia in Kherson, wrote on Telegram, “Deputy head of the Novaya Kakhovka administration in charge of the housing and utility sector, Vitaly Hura, has died.”
The report said that Hura was attacked in his home and shot several times.
In June, another Moscow-appointed official in the same area was killed allegedly by a bomb placed in his car.
There have been reports of alleged assassination attempts and attacks against pro-Kremlin officials in Ukrainian territories controlled by Russia.
Although Russia has occupied a large part of the Kherson region and nearby Zaporizhzhya in recent months, Ukraine’s military has recaptured some areas.
In his address on Saturday, Zelensky hit out at Amnesty International, comparing the rights group’s allegations against Ukraine’s military to silence on Russia’s actions.
Referring to the attacks on the Zaporizhzhya plant, he said that although they “represent one of the most dangerous crimes against Ukrainians and all Europeans …
“It’s a very eloquent silence, which points to the tinkering of this organization once again,” he said.
Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine with a report published on Thursday that accused the military of endangering civilians by setting up bases in schools and hospitals and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas.
amnesty report line
The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office left the organization in protest.
Oksana Poklchuk said on social media late Friday: “If you don’t live in a country that has been attacked by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand that the army of defenders What is to condemn?”
“And there are no words in any language to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced this pain.”
Poklchuk said he had tried to warn Amnesty’s senior leadership that the report was one-sided and failed to properly take into account the situation in Ukraine but was ignored.
Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard expressed regret at his departure and paid tribute to his work. But the organization stands by its report.
On Friday, Ukrainian officials said three grain ships left Ukraine for the first time on Monday as part of a deal to prevent massive food shortages.
Another five cargo ships are due to leave the Ukrainian ports of Odessa and Chernomorsk on Sunday, said a statement from the Joint Coordination Center of the Black Sea Grains Initiative – coordinating the operation agreed between Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations. organization .
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)