MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin warned his French counterpart of the potential “catastrophic consequences” of what he said were Ukrai¬nian attacks on the Zapor¬izhzhia nuclear power plant in a Russian-controlled area of Ukraine.
During a telephone call with Emmanuel Macron, Putin “drew attention to regular Ukrainian attacks on (Zaporizhzhia nuclear) facili¬ties, including a radioactive waste storage facility, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” the Kremlin said in a statement. The larg¬est nuclear power plant in Europe has been a focal point of fighting in recent weeks, raising concerns of a poten¬tial nuclear incident.
Putin said Russian special¬ists at the plant were taking steps to ensure its safety and said Moscow was ready to continue work with the UN’s atomic agency to agree on “non-politicised” solutions to problems at the facility.
Ukraine said on Sunday that its forces were pushing back Russia’s military from strategic holdouts in the east of the country after Moscow announced a retreat from Kyiv’s sweeping counter-offensive.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency said the final reactor at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station and a focal point of the conflict, was shut off as a safety measure.
The speed of Ukraine’s fightback against Russia’s invasion has apparently caught Moscow’s military off-guard, bringing swathes of territory Russia had controlled for months back into Ukraine’s fold.
Crates of dumped munitions and abandoned military hardware were seen scattered in territory left by the Russian forces, images posted by the Ukrainian military showed. “The liberation of settlements in the Kupiansk and Izyum districts of the Kharkiv region is ongoing,” the Ukrainian military said in a general battlefield update Sunday, 200 days into Russia’s invasion. These are key supply and logistics hubs that Russia depends on to restock its frontline positions in the east. Military observers have said their recapture by Ukraine would be a serious blow to Moscow’s military ambitions in Kharkiv.
The head of the Ukrainian military announced early Sunday that as much as 3,000 square kilometres (1,158 square miles) had been wrested from Russia since the offensive began at the beginning of this month.
That figure is already around one-third larger than the total area announced by President Volodymyr Zelensky late Saturday. On Sunday, he announced that Ukraine forces had taken a village of around 4,000 people between Kharkiv and Izyum.
“The great Ukrainian flag has been returned to Chkalovske. And it will be like that everywhere. We will cast out the occupiers from every Ukrainian town and village,” he said in a video online.
Ukrainian officials this weekend hailed the “astonishing” pace of the counter-offensive and on Sunday, the country’s foreign minister used the momentum to appeal to Western allies for more stockpiles of sophisticated weapons. –Agencies
