Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of bombing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, just two days after the plant cut off Ukrainian electricity, triggering a massive blackout and sparking foreign fears of a radioactive crisis before the emergency diesel turbines were activated.
Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog are expected to arrive at the plant this week.
The bombing of the plant may lead to hydrogen leaks, splashes of radioactive ingredients and fires, Ukraine’s nuclear power company warned in a statement, accusing Russian troops of attacking the facility “repeatedly” over the past day.
The attack by Russia and the plant was a risk to “the security of the total world,” he added. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine had fired projectiles at the facility in the past 24 hours.
Negotiations to reach the nuclear power plant through UN inspectors are nearing completion, however, the Kremlin insists on a presence in the Russian media for the Matrix, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Washington Post.
“The Russians will send the Russian media to the headquarters to receive the delegation and perform a propaganda show,” Kuleba said.
At the United Nations, Russia blocked the final draft of a declaration on a joint nuclear security treaty after weeks of negotiations. The Russian delegation opposed a clause in the text about the stage at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was imperative that representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency stop at the plant as soon as possible and help keep it “under the permanent control of Ukraine. “
“The scenario remains precarious and dangerous,” Zelenskyy said Friday. “Any repetition of the events [on Thursday], that is, any disconnection of the power plant from the grid or any action through Russia that could lead to the shutdown of the reactors, once back, put the plant one step away from disaster. “
Ukraine claimed that Russia was the plant of force as a shield by storing weapons and launching attacks around it. Moscow, for its part, accuses Ukraine of firing on the nuclear complex.
Ukraine canceled a deal with Russia, according to a parliamentary official. It was unclear which agreement he was referring to, in an agreement signed by the Russian, Ukrainian and American leaders in 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons for security guarantees. .
Elsewhere in Ukraine, one user was killed and others wounded in a Russian shooting in the Mykolaiv region, local government officials said. The city of Mykolaiv is a vital Black Sea port and shipbuilding center.
The governor of the eastern Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said Saturday that two other people were killed in a Russian firefight in the city of Bakhmut, a vital target for Russian forces and separatists seeking to take over parts of the region they do not yet control. .
Nearly 75 percent of Donetsk’s population has been evacuated since the war began, Kyrylenko said, adding that Ukraine retains about forty-five percent of the region, but all cities are constantly being bombed. The region, as well as the nearby city of Luhansk. , has long been a hotbed of confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s southern command used rockets to destroy a key bridge used by Russian troops in the southern Kherson region, Reuters reported.
Russia is likely to have a higher intensity of its attacks in the Donbass region in reaction to the hypothesis that Ukraine is planning a major counteroffensive, Britain’s Defense Ministry said saturday in an intelligence update. However, Russian forces have achieved little territorial gain overall, he added. .
The British government announced on Saturday that it was delivering underwater drones to Ukraine and educating sailors to use them to clean up the country’s devastated coastlines. Mines laid in the Black Sea war hampered Ukraine’s maritime grain exports to global markets, although an agreement was reached in July. allowed shipments to resume along an unmarried corridor.
LOW EXPECTATIONS
Russia has blocked the adoption of a joint agreement to close an ongoing United Nations convention on a nuclear weapons treaty, Western officials said, a diplomatic crusade that has highlighted the global ramifications of the war in Ukraine.
Moscow’s representatives at the month-long convention objected to the wording of the agreement that raised considerations about Ukraine, Russian news firm Tass reported.
The month-long convention on the implementation and strengthening of the 50-year-old Global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is held every five years and was once seen as an opportunity to address the shortcomings that have led to a resurgence in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Expectations of progress were low. Nor the last convention in a consensus document.
A senior Russian diplomat in the Moscow delegation, Andrey Belousov, blamed the lack of agreement on efforts by other nations to use the document “to settle scores with Russia, raising issues that are not similar to the treaty. “
“The convention has become the political hostage of states that, for more than four weeks, have poisoned discussions with their politicized, biased, unfounded and false s about Ukraine,” Belousov said after the session.
Western officials blamed Russia for throwing a key into the debates, which from the outset included discussions about the risk of a nuclear confrontation or a reversal of nuclear fate as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia has hindered progress by refusing to commit to the proposed text accepted by all states,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong wrote on Twitter.
The convention took a stand after a two-year delay due to the covid-19 pandemic. High-level representatives of the member states were present, in addition to the Prime Minister of Japan, the U. S. Secretary of State. U. S. and dozens of foreign ministers and delegations.
U. S. officials have made it clear that Russia’s objections are similar to Ukraine’s.
“We have not succeeded in a consensus document because of the unspeakable selection of a state,” Adam Scheinman, the U. S. special representative, wrote on Twitter. U. S. Nuclear Nonproliferation. ” The United States deeply regrets Russia’s refusal to acknowledge the gravity of the scenario in Ukraine. It’s absurd that Russia can’t do this. “
USE DELIVERY PLUS
Meanwhile, the Pentagon has expanded its use of shipping to deliver weapons for war in Ukraine, U. S. defense officials said. After relying heavily on aircraft at the beginning of the Russian invasion to bring weapons to Kyiv as temporarily as possible.
The Defense Department began shipping some pieces by sea weeks after the invasion, but particularly expanded the effort this spring because the U. S. The U. S. has begun supplying Ukraine with artillery shells and other heavy weapons that require a steady flow of large-caliber ammunition, U. S. defense officials said. The U. S. Navy said at U. S. Transportation Command headquarters. A recent stopover through Undersecretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks.
“Once we started offering them howitzers, we knew we were going to need more ammunition,” said Col. Steven Putthoff, deputy director of operations for U. S. Transportation Command. UU. ” So we can plan a little more in advance and then we may start employing more shipments to provide that help and get it there even before the application. “
The expansion underscores a new phase of the campaign, after a Russian attack on Kyiv was repulsed and Ukraine and its partners settled into what is expected to be a bitter war that may continue for months or even years.
Biden’s management has so far approved $12. 9 billion in military aid for Ukraine and on Wednesday pledged more than $2. 98 billion.
EE. UU. se’s army officials declined to detail the fast routes used to ship weapons to Ukraine, but said some of the U. S. weapons were used to send weapons to Ukraine. Continental U. S. reserves head directly to the battlefield, while others are used to fill U. S. reserves in Europe from which the U. S. military government is heading directly to the battlefield. UU. se has removed materials to arm Ukraine.
While aircraft can succeed in Europe from the United States much faster, ships can bring in large quantities of shipping that can allow Ukraine to build a larger arsenal for long-term war campaigns.
The effort comes a year after the U. S. The U. S. will carry out a terrible evacuation of more than 124,000 people from Afghanistan, taxing the Pentagon’s fleet of cargo planes. At the height of the operation, a C-17 landed at Hamid Karzai International Airport at least once. one hour.
This busy schedule forced Transportation Command to suspend additional operations until evacuation was complete, and then catch up with the planes in maintenance, Putthoff said.
During the evacuation, Putthoff said, “the total rest of the global species was suspended, what we call ‘broken glass. ‘We had to go back and cover it up in the following months. “
Arms deliveries to Ukraine are different, he said. While virtually all flights landed in Kabul, the evacuation were army jets, the Pentagon relied heavily on chartered planes and ships to send aircraft to Ukraine, leaving the U. S. military with the U. S. military. U. S. loose to carry out other shipping missions.
At Transportation Command, Hicks met Aug. 18 with army officers, and added Air Force Gen. Jackie Van Ovost, the command’s senior officer. Van Ovost said it was imperative to anticipate imaginable desires and outline routes as temporarily as you can imagine.
Equipment usually moves from an army depot via exercise or truck to an airport or seaport, and then arrives at a point in time from where it wants to be moved again.
“We’re not qualified to take it to a position where it’s not used,” Van Ovost said, speaking to Hicks, the Pentagon’s number two official. “We are qualified from start to finish. “
Van Ovost said the manual calculations that U. S. Army officials have done. U. S. personnel had to perform in the afterlife to move the devices took days.
“Now we have systems that allow us to do better,” he said. It’s fewer planes, in the right places, at the right time. And it’s done at the push of a button, and 3 or 4 seconds later, we have 3 or 4 options. “
Hicks blamed Transcom officials for making an “impressive ballet” to move everything needed. He then told reporters he wanted to make sure the army had the capability to manage its fleets and keep them the right size.
“Ukraine, as complicated as it is, doesn’t compare to the point of elevation, mobility and refueling that you want to make in a primary conflict,” Hicks said.
Among the weapons the Pentagon has delivered to Ukraine so far, there are more than 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, 8,500 Javelin anti-armor missiles for the destruction of Russian tanks, 700 Switchblade drones and 142 artillery howitzers with more than 900,000 rounds.
On Wednesday, senior Pentagon officials said they expected Ukraine to get even more aid from the military after the recent $3 billion pledge.
“This might be our biggest security assistance program to date, but let’s be clear: it may not be the last,” Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, told a news conference. “We will continue to consult intensively with Ukraine on its desires for short-, medium- and long-term capabilities. “
Information for this article provided by Jennifer Hassan, John Hudson and Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post and Cassandra Vinograd and Matt Surman of the New York Times and Derek Gatopoulos of the Associated Press.
Gallery: Images of Ukraine, month 7