The Ukrainian Nuclear Site Inspection Agency announced Friday that it had not detected any radiation leak from the Zaporizhia nuclear facility in the south of the country, which was subjected to Russian strikes during the night. The official body said that “no changes in the radiological situation were recorded.”
The Ukrainian authorities announced that a fire broke out at the Zaporizhia station as a result of Russian bombing. Ukraine’s Nuclear Site Inspection Agency said Russian forces had taken control of the territory of the facility in the south of the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow on Friday of resorting to what he described as “nuclear terrorism” and of wanting to “repeat” the Chernobyl disaster.
“No country except Russia has fired at nuclear power units. This is the first time in our history, in the history of mankind, that a terrorist country has now resorted to nuclear terrorism,” he said in a video message.
“Nuclear safety”
“The director of the plant has now announced a guarantee of nuclear safety, and according to plant officials, a training building and a laboratory have been damaged by the fire,” Oleksandr Staruch, head of the Military Administration of the Zaporizhia Region, said on Facebook.
The International Atomic Energy Agency had announced that it had contacted the Ukrainian authorities about news of the bombing of the Zaporizhia plant, and urged Russian forces on Friday to stop targeting the plant, warning of a “grave danger” if nuclear reactors were hit.
“The Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, spoke with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyal… about the dangerous situation at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, appealed for a halt to the use of force and warned of a grave danger if the reactors were hit,” the agency said in a tweet.
The plant in Zaporizhia produces an estimated 40 percent of the country’s nuclear energy
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also called on Russian forces to stop attacking Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.
“As a result of the bombing of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant by Russian forces, a fire broke out,” the facility’s spokesman, Andrei Toze, said in a video on the station’s account on Telegram.
The plant in Zaporizhia, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine, produces an estimated 40 percent of the country’s nuclear energy.
‘humanitarian corridors’
On the other hand, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators announced limited progress in ceasefire talks, and both sides agreed on the need for humanitarian corridors for civilians.
A senior Ukrainian official said that despite this outcome, the talks did not lead to the results Kyiv had hoped for.
The move comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the invasion of Ukraine, saying the military operation was “going according to plan”.
The humanitarian crisis is exacerbating as many cities are subjected to intense bombardment
However, the humanitarian crisis is worsening in Ukrainian cities under the weight of the intense Russian bombardment.
Putin also spoke by phone for 90 minutes with French President Emmanuel Macron.
One of Macron’s aides told a news conference that the French president had predicted that “the worst was yet to come”, after Putin told him that Russia would continue its campaign in Ukraine until it achieved its goals.
Macron told his Russian counterpart that the invasion was a grave mistake, and that his views did not correspond to reality.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed on a possible temporary ceasefire during undisclosed talks, the second this week.
Ukraine’s presidential aide, Mikhailo Podolyak, said the truce would only be in places where humanitarian corridors are established and for the duration of the civilian evacuation.
“Unfortunately, we did not achieve the results we had hoped for,” he added.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his country’s military intervention in Ukraine, saying things are going according to plans. He said that the Russians and the Ukrainians are one people. He made a series of allegations – without providing evidence – including that Ukrainian forces are holding foreign nationals hostage.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke at a press conference, calling for more military aid from the West. He warned that if Ukraine lost the war, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia would be President Putin’s next targets.
European Union interior ministers agreed at a meeting in Brussels that Ukrainian refugees who have fled to the bloc should be given special temporary protection. Refugees will be allowed to obtain one-year residency permits, the right to enter the labor market and access the health care and education systems.
A second round of talks between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia has ended. Both sides noted that some progress has been made. A Ukrainian official said the Russians had agreed to allow humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians. The talks took place across the Ukrainian border with Belarus.
Many Ukrainian cities are besieged or almost besieged by Russian forces.
The situation is particularly acute in the southern port city of Mariupol, which has been subjected to fierce bombardment without a truce for several days, and there are fears of hundreds of deaths in the city.
Russian tanks and military vehicles were seen on the streets of Kherson
On Wednesday, Russian tanks entered the port city of Kherson, home to about 250,000 people, the first major Ukrainian city to fall more than a week after the fighting began.
The United States said the situation on the ground was changing rapidly as the fighting continued.
Ukraine has said more than 2,000 civilians have been killed since the invasion began last Thursday, and the United Nations says the conflict has also caused more than a million people to flee Ukraine.
After his phone call with the French president, Putin addressed the Russian National Security Council, and in televised statements defended his attack on Ukraine, saying that the campaign was going according to plan and in full accordance with the schedule.
He said he would never give up his conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, and claimed that some Ukrainians were intimidated or “deceived by Nazi propaganda”.
Putin claimed that Ukrainian forces were using civilians as human shields and holding foreigners as hostages, but he provided no evidence for this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video message on Thursday, also demanded that Russia compensate Ukraine for the shock of the invasion.
“You will fully compensate us for everything you have done against our state, against every Ukrainian,” he said.
He called on the West to send more military aid, including aircraft, and warned that if Ukraine lost the war, the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, would be Putin’s next targets.
