Evacuations from the front line around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station prompted safety warnings from the UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday, as a string of strikes escalate predictions of a looming spring counteroffensive.
Moscow has blamed Kyiv — and its Western supporters — for an escalating number of long-range attacks and sabotage operations, including on the Kremlin.
Citing stepped-up shellings by Kyiv, Moscow has ordered families with children and elderly to temporarily evacuate a slew of Russian-held areas in southern Ukraine, including the town near Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
Photo: Reuters
“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director-general Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Saturday. “I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.”
The removal order has led to “a mad panic and no less mad queues” at the checkpoint into Russian-annexed Crimea, said Ivan Fedorov, the mayor of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
With buses ferrying people out every 20 to 30 minutes, he said stations have been drained of gasoline.
Photo: Reuters
“The partial evacuation they announced is going too fast, and there is a possibility that they may be preparing for provocations and [for that reason] focusing on civilians,” Fedorov wrote on Telegram.
A car bomb on Saturday morning wounded prominent nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin and killed his assistant in an attack that Moscow pinned on Kyiv and Washington.
Investigators said that Ukraine was behind the blast that wrecked Prilepin’s vehicle in Nizhny Novgorod, about 400km from Moscow.
They published images of a partly destroyed, overturned car and said the well-known novelist was taken to a hospital.
Suspect Alexander Permyakov acted “on the instructions from the Ukrainian special services,” said the Russian Investigative Committee, which handles major crimes.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak appeared to suggest the attack was due to Russian in-fighting, referring to the biblical figure Moloch, a pagan deity who “devours his enemies ... and finally devours his own.”
Later, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also blamed Washington for the attack.
“The responsibility for this terrorist act, and for others, does not lie only with Ukraine, but also with its Western minders, primarily the United States,” it said.
Prilepin is a vocal supporter of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, where he fought alongside pro-Russian separatists in 2014. He has been a frequent visitor to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the start of the conflict in April 2014.
There have been two previous killings of nationalists, both of which Russia blamed on Ukraine.
Last month, a blast from a statuette rigged with explosives killed 40-year-old pro-Kremlin military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.
The Kremlin said that attack had been orchestrated by Ukraine with the help of supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, but observers said the bombing could be used to justify a further crackdown on critics.
In August last year, Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent nationalist intellectual, was killed in a car bombing outside Moscow, which Russia blamed on Ukraine. Kyiv denied the charges.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
RSS