A view shows the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine August 4, 2022. (Reuters)Russia Ukraine War Live Updates: As Russia and Ukraine continued to accuse each other of shelling Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, the UN chief proposed a demilitarised zone at the site as fears of a nuclear catastrophe mounted. Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the world was being pushed “to the brink of nuclear catastrophe, comparable in scale with Chornobyl.”
Ukraine’s Energoatom agency said the Zaporizhzhia complex was struck five times on Thursday, including near where radioactive materials are stored. Russian-appointed officials said Ukraine shelled the plant twice, disrupting a shift changeover, news agency Reuters said, quoting TASS.
Meanwhile, the Institute for the Study of War said Ukrainian officials were framing the Crimea strike on the Russian airforce base in Saki as the start of Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south. Their report suggests that intense fighting in August and September that could decide the outcome of the next phase of the war.
➡️ The scale of damage from explosions at an air base in Russian-annexed Crimea on Tuesday and the apparent precision of an attack suggested a new capability with potential implications for the course of the war, Western military experts said. Moscow said the explosions were detonations of stored ammunition.
➡️ Ukrainian President Zelenskyy told government officials to stop talking to reporters about Kyiv's military tactics against Russia, saying such remarks were "frankly irresponsible". He was reacting to newspaper reports citing unidentified officials as saying Ukrainian forces were responsible for the explosions in Crimea.
➡️ Russia has doubled the number of air strikes on Ukraine's military positions and civilian infrastructure compared with the previous week, a Ukrainian Brigadier General said.
➡️ Western countries committed more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.55 billion) in cash, equipment and training to boost Ukraine's military capabilities.
➡️ Ukraine aims to evacuate two-thirds of residents from areas it controls in the eastern battleground region of Donetsk before winter.
➡️ Russian officials trained in Iran in recent weeks as part of a drone deal, Washinton said. US officials previously said Iran would provide up to several hundred drones, including some that are weapons capable, to Russia. The claim raised concerns that Iran was supporting Russia in its war in Ukraine. (Reuters)
India has expressed concern over reports of shelling near the Zaphorizhya Nuclear Power Plant, reported news agency ANI.
The UN nuclear chief warned Thursday that “very alarming” military activity at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine could lead to dangerous consequences for the region and called for an end to attacks at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia facility.
Rafael Grossi urged Russia and Ukraine, who blame each other for the attacks at the plant, to immediately allow nuclear experts to assess damage and evaluate safety and security at the sprawling nuclear complex where the situation “has been deteriorating very rapidly.”
He pointed to shelling and several explosions at Zaporizhzhia last Friday that forced the shutdown of the electrical power transformer and two backup transformers, forcing the shutdown of one nuclear reactor. (AP)
Estonia decided Thursday to bar people from neigbouring Russia with tourist visas from entering the northernmost Baltic country as a consequence of the war in Ukraine.
“Russian citizens' opportunity to visit Estonia in large numbers or to visit Europe through Estonia is incompatible with the meaning of the sanctions we've established,” Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service said.
The European Union, of which Estonia is a member, already has banned air travel from Russia after it invaded Ukraine. But Russians can still travel by land to Estonia and apparently are then take flights to other European destinations.
By imposing the sanction, Estonia wants Russia “to be unable to continue its ordinary international life also at the level of its citizens,” Reinsalu said according to BNS, the region's main news agency. (AP)
Former Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova was placed under house arrest for two months on Thursday in a criminal case where she is charged with spreading fake news about Russia's armed forces, Interfax news agency quoted a Moscow court as saying.
Ovsyannikova has already been fined twice in separate cases for protesting against the war in Ukraine, including by interrupting a live national news bulletin in March, shouting "Stop the war!" and holding up a placard telling viewers not to believe state propaganda.
In the latest case, she faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of distributing information about the Russian army that differs from government accounts. (Reuters)
On a day of give and take, Western nations made more pledges to send arms to Ukraine while the European Union's full ban on Russian coal imports kicked in on Thursday amid claims sanctions against Moscow now even affected its defense exports.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged Thursday that Germany “is shipping arms — a great, great many, sweeping and very effective. And we will continue to do so in the coming time.” Germany, seen early in the war as a lackadaisical ally, has already approved military exports of at least USD 710 million. Scholz said Germany's commitment to such exports was a “massive” break with its past. He added that Berlin would also provide further financial aid to Ukraine.
In Copenhagen, Britain and Denmark also made more commitments to shore up Ukraine's defense to push back Russia's invasion which has devastated the nation and reverberated across the world, causing anything from economic damage to the depletion of food supplies. (AP)
Russia has doubled the number of air strikes on Ukraine's military positions and civilian infrastructure compared with the previous week, Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov said on Thursday.
"The enemy's planes and helicopters avoid flying into the range of our air defences, and therefore the accuracy of these strikes is low," he told a news conference.
Hromov said Ukraine would send reinforcements to Pisky, a frontline town on the outskirts of the separatist-held city of Donetsk that has seen intense fighting in recent days.
"Throughout the week, the enemy has constantly assaulted Pisky, conducting 6-7 attacks a day," he added. (Reuters)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for an immediate end to military activity near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe's largest.
"I am calling on the military forces of the Russian Federation and Ukraine to immediately cease all military activities in the immediate vicinity of the plant and not to target its facilities or surroundings," he said in a statement. (Reuters)
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Western nations Thursday to provide more money to help Ukraine's military keep fighting nearly 5 1/2 months after Russia invaded its neighbor.
“The sooner we stop Russia, the sooner we can feel safe,” Zelenskyy said while addressing defense leaders at a Denmark conference aimed at strengthening financing for weapons, training and demining work in his country. “We need armaments, munitions for our defense," he added, speaking via a live link from Ukraine.
The conference in Copenhagen is a follow-up to an April meeting at a U.S. air base in Germany that established the U.S.-led Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which coordinates international military support for Ukraine. (AP)
Latvia's parliament on Thursday designated Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism" over the war in Ukraine and called on Western allies to impose more comprehensive sanctions on Moscow in order to bring an end to the conflict.
"Latvia recognises Russia's actions in Ukraine as targeted genocide against the Ukrainian people," the Baltic nation's parliament said in a resolution.
Western nations should increase their military, financial, humanitarian and diplomatic backing for Ukraine and support initiatives condemning Russia's actions, it added.
Millions of Ukrainians have fled their homes and thousands have been killed since Russia's invasion in February.
Moscow says it does not deliberately target civilians in what it calls its "special military operation" aimed at safeguarding Russia's security and protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine. (Reuters)
Satellite images by Planet Labs PBC shows Saki Air Base after an explosion there Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, in the Crimean Peninsula, the Black Sea peninsula seized from Ukraine by Russia and annexed in March 2014. Ukraine said Wednesday that nine Russian warplanes were destroyed in a deadly string of explosions at an air base in Crimea that appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack, which would represent a significant escalation in the war.
(Photos: Via AP)
Britain will supply Ukraine with more multiple-launch rocket systems that can strike targets up to 80 km (50 miles) away.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the supply of weapons would help Ukraine defend itself against Russian heavy artillery.
"This latest tranche of military support will enable the Armed Forces of Ukraine to continue to defend against Russian aggression and the indiscriminate use of long-range artillery," Wallace said in a statement.
"Our continued support sends a very clear message, Britain and the international community remain opposed to this illegal war and will stand shoulder-to-shoulder, providing defensive military aid to Ukraine to help them defend against Putin's invasion." (Reuters)
A grain-carrying ship that was scheduled to depart from Ukraine's Chornomorsk port under an UN-brokered deal Thursday was unable to set sail due to bad weather conditions, Turkey's defence ministry said.
The agreement was reached last month after warnings that the halt in grain shipments from Ukrainian ports due to the conflict could lead to severe food shortages and even outbreaks of famine in parts of the world.
"A ship whose departure from Chornomorsk Port for grain shipment was planned for today could not set sail due to bad weather and sea conditions," Turkey's defence ministry said. (Reuters)
Russia's Gazprom said on Thursday that it continues shipping gas to Europe via Ukraine, and will send 41.6 million cubic metres on Thursday, a figure unchanged from Wednesday. (Reuters)
Russia's defence industry, which is reportedly considered one of its most important export successes, is under strain due to the Ukraine war, said British intelligence in its update on Thursday.
➡️ Russia launched 80 Grad rockets at the town of Marhanets across the Dnipro river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Tuesday, Valentyn Reznychenko, governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, said, adding that more than 20 buildings were damaged.
➡️ There was no immediate comment from Russia, which has accused Ukraine of shelling the plant, something Kyiv denies.
➡️ Ukraine will respond to the Russian shelling of Marhanets and needs to consider how to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible to end the war quickly, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
➡️ Two US newspapers cited unnamed Ukrainian officials as saying Ukrainian special forces had carried out an attack on Tuesday on an air base on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, destroying military aircraft.
➡️ Moscow had said the explosions were detonations of stored ammunition. Kyiv has not taken responsibility for the attacks. (Reuters)
The UK Ministry of Defence, in its intelligence assessment of the ongoing war in Ukraine, has and sounded an alarm on the possible use of PFM-1 series ‘Butterfly Mines’ by the Russian military in Donetsk and Kramatorsk.
What are these mines and what kind of damage can they afflict?
As per an intelligence bulletin put out by UK Ministry of Defence a few days back on the security situation in Ukraine, Russia is is likely to have deployed anti-personnel mines to deter freedom of movement along its defensive lines in the Donbas.
The head of the Russian-backed separatist administration in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region said that a trial of captured personnel from Ukraine's Azov Regiment would take place by the end of the summer, likely in the city of Mariupol.
The Azov Regiment, a unit of Ukraine's national guard with far-right and ultranationalist origins, garnered international attention for its resistance to the Russian siege of Mariupol's vast steelworks.
After fighting for weeks from the bunkers and tunnels below the steel works, hundreds of Azov fighters surrendered in May to Russian-backed forces. Though the Azov prisoners have not yet been formally charged, on Aug. 2 Russia's supreme court ruled the regiment was a terrorist organisation, clearing the way for captured fighters to be charged as such. (Reuters)
Heavy fighting raged around the eastern Ukrainian town of Pisky on Thursday as Russia pressed its campaign to seize all of the industrialised Donbas region.
An official with the Russia-backed Donetsk People's Republic said Pisky, on the frontlines just 10 km northwest of provincial capital Donetsk, was under the control of Russian and separatist forces.
"It's hot in Pisky. The town is ours but there remain scattered pockets of resistance in its north and west," the official, Danil Bezsonov, said on Telegram. Ukrainian officials denied that the heavily fortified town, a key to the defence of Donetsk, had fallen. (Reuters)
Pro-Russian separatists accused Ukraine of shelling a brewery in the occupied eastern city of Donetsk on Wednesday, killing one person and triggering a leak of ammonia, Interfax news agency said.
The emergencies ministry in the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said a shell had hit an ammonia line late at night, sparking a fire that at one point covered 600 square metres.
Reuters pictures from the scene showed flames lighting the sky above one part of the city as well as firefighters donning masks. One picture appeared to show a corpse on the ground. (Reuters)