Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency are used to risky missions — from the radioactive aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan to the politically charged Iranian nuclear program. But their deployment amid the war in Ukraine to Zaporizhzhia takes the threat to a new level and underscores the lengths to which the organization will go in attempts to avert a potentially catastrophic nuclear disaster. Read more

Germany will provide Ukraine with an additional 200 million euros ($199.02 million) to fund aid programs for those internally displaced as a result of Russia's invasion, Development Minister Svenja Schulze told Funke Media group. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal will visit Berlin on Monday where he will meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Already bad relations between the United States and Russia have worsened dramatically since Russia's February 24 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration sees Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine as the most acute and immediate threat to international stability, and it has been leading an international coalition supporting Ukraine.

UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Friday he plans to issue a report on the safety of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine early next week. Speaking at a news conference upon his return to Vienna, Grossi said six International Atomic Energy Agency staff members remain at Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, after he led a 14-person mission there.

Ukraine's military said it had carried out strikes against Russian positions in the region around the southern town of Enerhodar on Friday, near a nuclear power plant where U.N. experts are working. The revelation by the armed forces' general staff was unusual, since the military rarely gives details of specific targets. A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency is gathering data at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, on the edge of Russian-occupied Enerhodar. "It has been confirmed that in the region around the towns of Kherson and Enerhodar, precise strikes by our armed forces destroyed three enemy artillery systems as well as a warehouse with ammunition and up to a company of soldiers," the general staff said in a Facebook post. It did not give more details about the strikes. Kherson is about 300 km (185 miles) south-west of Enerhodar.