Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday accused Russia of using the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station “for terror” after the operator of the facility reported major damage at the site.
Energoatom, operator of the power plant in the south of the country, said that parts of the facility had been “seriously damaged” by military strikes and one of its reactors was forced to shut down.
Friday’s strikes damaged a station containing nitrogen and oxygen, as well as an auxiliary building, Energoatom said on the Telegram messaging service.
Photo: AFP
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the attacks on the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest atomic power complex.
Zelenskiy in his nightly address once again accused Moscow of terrorism, saying: “Russian terrorists became the first in the world to use the power plant ... for terror.”
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi expressed alarm over the shelling at the plant.
Photo: AFP
The strikes underline “the very real risk of a nuclear disaster,” Grossi said.
“Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” he added.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell condemned the attack “as a serious and irresponsible breach of nuclear safety rules and another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms.”
As hostilities raged on in the east and south of Ukraine, pro-Moscow authorities in the Russian-occupied Kherson region reported the assassination of a senior official.
Vitalii Hura, “the deputy head of the Novaya Kakhovka administration in charge of the housing and utility sector, died from his wounds,” Yekaterina Gubareva, the deputy head of Russia’s civil-military administration in Kherson, wrote on Telegram.
Hura had been attacked in his home and shot several times, Russian state news agency TASS quoted her as saying.
Another Moscow-appointed official was killed in the same region in June, reportedly by a bomb planted in his vehicle.
There has been a spate of reported assassination attempts and attacks against pro-Kremlin officials in Ukrainian regions controlled by Russia.
Although Russia has seized a large swath of the Kherson region and part of nearby Zaporizhzhia over the past few months, Ukrainian forces have reclaimed some territory.
In his address, Zelenskiy lashed out at Amnesty International, comparing the rights group’s accusations that Ukrainian forces had endangered civilians with its silence on Russia’s actions.
Referring to the strikes on the Zaporizhzhia plant, he said that although they represented “one of the most dangerous crimes against Ukrainians and all Europeans ... for some reason, there’s still no report or even just a simple message from Amnesty International about it.
“It’s a very eloquent silence, which points out, once more, a manipulative selectivity of this organization,” he added.
Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine with a report published on Thursday that accused the military of endangering civilians by establishing bases in schools and hospitals, and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas.
Late on Friday, Amnesty International Ukraine section head Oksana Pokalchuk announced that she had resigned from the organization over the report.
“If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,” Pokalchuk said on social media. “And there are no words in any language that can convey this to someone who has not experienced this pain.”
Pokalchuk said she had tried to warn Amnesty’s senior leadership that the report was one-sided and failed to properly take into account the Ukrainian position, but had been ignored.
Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard expressed regret at Pokalchuk’s departure and paid tribute to her work, but said that the organization stands by its report.
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
THIRD IN A ROW? An expert said if the report of a probe into the defense official is true, people would naturally ask if it would erode morale in the military Chinese Minister of National Defense Dong Jun (董軍) has been placed under investigation for corruption, a report said yesterday, the latest official implicated in a crackdown on graft in the country’s military. Citing current and former US officials familiar with the situation, British newspaper the Financial Times said that the investigation into Dong was part of a broader probe into military corruption. Neither the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Chinese embassy in Washington replied to a request for confirmation yesterday. If confirmed, Dong would be the third Chinese defense minister in a row to fall under investigation for corruption. A former navy
‘VIOLATIONS OF DISCIPLINE’: Miao Hua has come up through the political department in the military and he was already fairly senior before Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 A member of China’s powerful Central Military Commission has been suspended and put under investigation, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday. Miao Hua (苗華) was director of the political work department on the commission, which oversees the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest standing military. He was one of five members of the commission in addition to its leader, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Ministry spokesman Colonel Wu Qian (吳謙) said Miao is under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” which usually alludes to corruption. It is the third recent major shakeup for China’s defense establishment. China in June
RSS