Ukraine’s biggest nuclear plant, which is surrounded by Russian troops, has lost all external power needed for safety systems for the second time in five days, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, calling it a “deeply worrying development.”
The warning from International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi came amid a flurry of developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military command said that its forces recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region, on the western fringe of a zone under Russian control, and Russia’s top domestic security agency said eight people had been arrested in connection with the weekend Crimea bridge blast.
Photo: AP
Grossi, who met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, said that agency monitors at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) — Europe’s largest nuclear power facility — reported the interruption in external power, and said backup diesel generators were keeping nuclear safety and security equipment operational.
“This repeated loss of #ZNPP’s off-site power is a deeply worrying development and it underlines the urgent need for a nuclear safety & security protection zone around the site,” Grossi wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said on the Telegram social media platform that a Russian missile attack on the substation Dniprovska in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region to the north led to the shutdown of a key communications line to the plant — prompting the diesel generators to turn on automatically.
Photo: Reuters
Earlier on Wednesday, Ukraine’s southern command said that its forces recaptured five settlements in the southern Kherson region.
The villages of Novovasylivka, Novohryhorivka, Nova Kamianka, Tryfonivka and Chervone in Beryslav District were retaken as of Tuesday, said Vladislav Nazarov, the southern command’s spokesman.
The settlements are in one of the four regions recently annexed by Russia.
Also on Wednesday, Russia’s top domestic security agency said that it arrested eight people on charges of involvement in the bombing of the main bridge linking Russia to Crimea, while an official in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia said Russian forces carried out more strikes there.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it arrested five Russians, and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over Saturday’s attack that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula — a crucial thoroughfare for supplies.
The FSB said that the suspects were working on orders of Ukraine’s military intelligence to secretly move the explosives into Russia and forge the accompanying documents.
It said the explosives were moved by sea from the Ukrainian port of Odesa to Bulgaria before being shipped to Georgia, driven to Armenia and then back to Georgia before being transported to Russia in a complex scheme to secretly deliver them to the target.
Putin said that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast, calling it “an act of terrorism,” and responded by ordering a barrage of missile strikes on Ukraine, which continued yesterday.
“It brings anger, not fear,” Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said of the strikes as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capital’s streets. “We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting.”
The leaders of the G7 condemned the bombardment and said they would “stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the G7 leaders during a virtual meeting that Russia fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine over two days.
He appealed for “more modern and effective” air defense systems — even though he said Ukraine shot down many of the Russian projectiles.
The Pentagon on Tuesday announced plans to deliver the first two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks.
The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, would provide medium to long-range defense against missile attacks.
In a telephone call with Zelenskiy on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” the White House said.
Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on Twitter that four German IRIS-T air defense systems had just arrived, saying a “new era” of air defense for Ukraine had begun.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to