KYIV, Ukraine — Russia and Ukraine traded accusations Monday that every aspect is shelling Europe’s greatest nuclear energy plant in southern Ukraine. Russia claimed that Ukrainian shelling prompted an influence surge and fireplace and compelled workers to decrease output from two reactors, whereas Ukraine has blamed Russian troops for storing weapons there.
Nuclear specialists have warned that extra shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy station, which was captured by Russia early within the struggle, is fraught with hazard. The Kremlin echoed that assertion Monday, claiming that Ukrainian shelling may create “catastrophic” penalties for Europe.
Rafael Grossi, director basic of the Worldwide Atomic Power Company, has warned that the best way the plant was being run below Russian forces and the combating happening round it are posing grave well being and environmental threats.
Ukraine’s navy intelligence chief, Andriy Yusov, countered the Russian statements by saying his group had acquired credible data from a number of sources that Russian forces have planted explosives on the Zaporizhzhia plant to move off an anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive within the area. Beforehand, Ukrainian officers have stated Russia is launching assaults from the plant and utilizing its Ukrainian employees as human shields.
Earlier than Sunday’s shelling, the nuclear plant got here below fireplace final week and all sides accused the opposite of the assault.
Russian Protection Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov stated Monday that the Ukrainian assault a day earlier on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant prompted an influence surge and smoke erupted at its swap facility, triggering an emergency shutdown. Fireplace groups extinguished the hearth, and the plant’s personnel lowered the output of reactors No. 5 and No. 6 to 500 megawatts, he stated.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged Western powers to drive Kyiv to cease attacking the plant.
“Shelling of the territory of the nuclear plant by the Ukrainian armed forces is very harmful,” Peskov stated in a convention name with reporters. “It’s fraught with catastrophic penalties for huge territories, for your entire Europe.”
However Yusov, Ukraine’s navy intelligence chief, stated Monday: “We now have seen the Russian shelling of the Ukrainian nuclear energy plant.”
He added that, “If it’s not so, if it doesn’t conform to actuality, the Russians could make a goodwill gesture and hand over management of the plant to a world fee and the IAEA, if to not the Ukrainian navy.”
Yusov stated the Russians used comparable ways at Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear plant after they had occupied it early within the struggle.
“This can be a technique of terror and scorched earth utilized by the Russians forward of an inevitable Ukrainian counteroffensives within the south,” he stated.
On the excessive seas, in the meantime, the primary of the ships to go away Ukraine below a deal to unblock grain provides and stave off a world meals disaster has arrived in Turkey. The Turkey-flagged Polarnet docked on the port of Derince within the Gulf of Izmit after setting off from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk on Friday laden with 12,000 tons of corn.
“This sends a message of hope to each household within the Center East, Africa, and Asia: Ukraine received’t abandon you,” Ukrainian International Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “If Russia sticks to its obligations, the ‘grain hall’ will maintain sustaining world meals safety.”
But Polarnet Captain Ahmet Yucel Alibeyler highlighted the dangers confronted by grain-carrying ships attempting to cross the Black Sea.
“These have been, in fact, harmful areas, corridors that had been cleared, demined,” he stated.
On the entrance traces of the struggle, the Kremlin reasserted Monday that Russia will sustain its navy assaults on Ukraine till it achieves its targets.
Ukraine’s presidential workplace stated Monday that the Russian navy shelled seven Ukrainian areas over the previous 24 hours, killing 5 individuals and wounding 20 extra.
Ukrainian forces struck Russian-controlled areas within the south of the nation in a single day, native officers stated, once more hitting a strategic bridge within the southern metropolis of Kherson.
The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, a Russian-controlled metropolis within the neighboring Zaporizhzhia area, stated Ukrainian forces used U.S. HIMARS rocket launchers to shell a number of amenities the place the Russian navy was stationed. Mayor Ivan Fyodorov stated on Telegram that some 100 Russian troops have been killed. His claims couldn’t be independently verified, and the Russian navy didn’t instantly remark.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Moscow-appointed administration of the Kherson area, stated Monday morning that Ukrainian shelling once more broken the Antonivskiy bridge over the Dnieper River.
The bridge, a key artery for Russian navy provides, has been closed in latest weeks due to earlier shelling and plans to reopen it on Wednesday have been shelved because of the newest assault, Stremousov stated.
Russian forces additionally saved shelling Nikopol, a metropolis simply throughout the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, Ukraine’s presidential workplace stated. Nikopol’s gasoline pipelines, plumbing and energy traces are not functioning, and 1000’s of individuals are left with out electrical energy.
A complete of 12 ships have now been licensed to sail below the grain deal between Ukraine and Russia, which was brokered by Turkey and the United Nations — ten outbound and two headed for Ukraine. Some 322,000 metric tons of agricultural merchandise have left Ukrainian ports, the majority of it corn but in addition sunflower oil and soya.
4 ships that left Ukraine on Sunday are anticipated to anchor close to Istanbul on Monday night and be inspected on Tuesday to ensure they’re carrying solely meals gadgets south and no weapons into Ukraine.
However the grain deal stays removed from plain crusing. The primary cargo ship to go away Ukraine, the Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, left Odessa on Aug. 1 heading for Lebanon with 26,000 metric tons of corn for rooster feed. Nevertheless it has run right into a enterprise dispute and can not dock in Lebanon, the Tripoli port chief advised The Related Press on Monday.
Ukraine’s embassy in Beirut tweeted Monday that the corn’s last purchaser in Lebanon refused to simply accept the cargo because of the supply delay past a contractual restrict and that the shipper was now on the lookout for one other purchaser for the corn.
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Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Mehmet Guzel in Derince, Turkey, and Andrew Wilks in Istanbul contributed.
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Comply with the AP’s protection of the struggle at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine