In eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian troops have apparently continued to push back the Russian enemy. They are said to have recaptured a village in the Luhansk region, a symbolic victory in the separatist area.
Dead after artillery shelling in Donetsk
According to Russian-backed separatists, 13 people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack in the industrial city of Donetsk.
According to local media, two grenades hit a bus stop and a shop. Local authorities blame Ukrainian troops for the shelling. Kyiv regularly denies such allegations. The information could not be independently confirmed.
Selenskyj with his military: Quick action is necessary
After consulting with his military, Zelenskyy said that the Ukrainian forces had the situation in the liberated areas near Kharkiv in the east firmly under control: “In the Kharkiv region we are stabilizing the situation and holding our positions, so that the occupiers are panicking. Well , we warned you: the Russian military has only two options in Ukraine: escape or captivity. The collaborators have similar options: either try to escape – and it remains to be seen whether Russia will let them into its territory, even if it does gave them passports – or they will be sentenced under the current legislation of Ukraine.”
At the same time, the head of state called for quick action: speed is important in stabilizing the liberated regions, in normalizing life there and in advancing the troops. Support from abroad must also keep up with this pace, he demanded.
Donetsk and Luhansk are demanding rapid union with Russia
In view of the advance of Ukrainian troops, so-called civil chambers in the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk appealed to the local leadership to hold a referendum on rapid accession to Russia soon.
Lina Vokalova, deputy head of the Citizens’ Chamber in the Luhansk region: “Residents of Donbass made their choice back in 2014 in the referendum on self-determination of the Luhansk People’s Republic. We have waited all these years and hoped that the second referendum would come and our dream, to return to Russia finally comes true.”
The Ukrainian head of administration for Luhansk, Serhiy Hajdaj, expressed the assumption that the annexation of the Moscow regions should provide the basis for a general mobilization. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak wrote on Twitter that possible referenda would not change the fact that Donetsk, Luhansk and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia had annexed for years, belonged to Ukraine under international law.
Preparations for such referendums have been underway in the separatist republics controlled by Russia since 2014 for a long time.
Rocket impact near nuclear power plant
According to the state operator Energoatom, the impact of a Russian rocket near a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine damaged three high-voltage lines and a system at the nearby hydroelectric power plant. In the nuclear power plant building itself, more than 100 windows were destroyed by the blast.
The southern Ukraine nuclear power plant is located almost 300 kilometers south of the capital Kyiv. There are three reactors in operation with a net output of 2850 megawatts. The shelling of the facilities of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant had already triggered international fears of a nuclear catastrophe for several weeks.