The Ukrainian nuclear energy operator accused Russian forces of moving missile launchers to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to fire on the Nikopol and Dnipro regions, which saw attacks on Friday night.
“Russian occupiers installed missile launch systems on the territory of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant” in southern UkraineEnergoatom president Petro Kotin said on Telegram following a television interview on the Ukrainian channel United News.
“The situation (at the plant) is extremely tense and the tension is increasing day by day. The occupants are bringing their machinery, including the missile systems with which they have attacked the other side of the Dnipro river and the Nikopol territory,” 80 km southwest of Zaporizhia, he added.
Some 500 Russian soldiers remain at the plant site and have it under their control, he said.
The largest power plant in Ukraine was taken over by the russian Forces In March, shortly following the Russian invasion on February 24.
Almost the entire country was placed on air alert overnight, and official and unofficial sources reported attacks in the Mykolaiv and Donetsk regions on social media.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, in his daily message, reported on Friday night the attacks in Dnipro (east), Kremenchuk (near kyiv) and the kyiv region.
Shortly following, the Ukrainian air force reported that Russian Kh-101 missiles were launched from the Caspian Sea at Dnipro, four of which were destroyed. But several others fell at an industrial site without causing casualties.
more attacks
Meanwhile, Kramatorsk, a city in Donbas still under Ukrainian control, came under heavy shelling on Friday as the central city of Vinnytsia counted its dead following a deadly attack a day earlier.
The attack on the central Kramatorsk Peace Square left a two meter crater and shattered the windows of nearby buildings, although it caused no casualties because it happened following curfew, according to an air defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“I was on my balcony, I saw something burning in the middle of the square and then it exploded,” said Genya, a 72-year-old resident.
The shelling came a day following missile strikes in Vinnytsia, hundreds of kilometers to the west, left at least 23 people dead, including several children.
“The identification of all the culprits” of this attack “has already begun,” Zelensky said on Friday.
“Russian society, with so many murderers and executioners, will continue to be destroyed for generations, and that’s their fault,” the president added.
Ukrainian authorities identified one of the deceased as Liza Dmitrieva, a four-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was on her way with her mother Irina to a therapeutic center in this city of 370,000 inhabitants located 250 kilometers southwest of the Ukrainian capital kyiv. .
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified” by the bombing and the European Union (EU) called it an “atrocity”.
Fighting in the south and in the Donbas
The Russian military claimed that the shelling in Vinnytsia was directed at “the officers’ house” in that city where a meeting of the “Ukrainian air force command with representatives of foreign arms suppliers” was taking place.
Something that a Pentagon official questioned. “I have no indication that there was a military target near there,” the official, who requested anonymity, told reporters. “It looked like an apartment building,” he added.
Ukraine announced on Friday that it had received its first delivery of the sophisticated M270 MLRS multiple rocket launcher system, as part of military aid provided by Western powers.
Currently the bulk of the fighting is centered in the south and in the Donbas mining and industrial basin, in the East.
In the eastern part, pro-Russian separatists said on Friday they were closing in on Siversk, their next target, following taking control of the towns of Lysychansk and Severodonetsk two weeks ago following heavy fighting.
“The Ukrainian command has decided to gradually withdraw its units from the town of Siversk,” Andrey Marochko, a spokesman for the separatist militias, told the TASS agency.
“Russia must take full responsibility”
The separatist leaders announced the death in detention on July 10 of a Briton captured in April by these forces, Paul Urey, who according to his family was carrying out humanitarian missions.
Sick of diabetes and kidney, respiratory and heart problems, as well as affected by “stress”, said Daria Morozova, a Donetsk official
“Russia must bear full responsibility” for the Urey’s death, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said.
On the economic front, Western finance ministers meeting at the G20 in Indonesia blamed Moscow for the enormous impact of the war on the world economy.
“The Unjustified War of Russia vs. Ukraine has sent a shock wave to the world economy,” said Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, to the Russian delegation at the opening session, according to an official.
Some 20 million tons of grain are currently blocked in the ports by the presence of Russian warships and mines, laid by kyiv, to defend its coast.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations meeting in Istanbul this week, along with Turkish and UN officials, to discuss the unblocking of grain exports agreed to continue the talks next week.
