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Ukraine targets Russian soldiers who threaten Europe’s largest nuclear power plant According to Reuters

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© Reuters. Ukrainian soldiers prepare a D-30 howitzer to fire near the front lines in the Mykolaiv region, as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, Ukraine August 13, 2022. REUTERS / Oleksandr Ratushniak

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By Natalia Zinets

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine is targeting Russian soldiers firing at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant or using it as a base to shoot, as the G7 nations, fearing a nuclear disaster, called on Moscow to withdraw its forces from the plant.

Ukraine and Russia have made accusations related to multiple shelling of the Zaporizhzhia facility in southern Ukraine. The Russian army captured the fort early in the war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said: “Every Russian soldier who shoots at the factory, using the plant as cover, must understand that he becomes a special target for our intelligence agents, for the services. our special, for our military,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a speech on Saturday night.

Zelenskiy, who did not give details, repeated claims that Russia was using the plant as a nuclear blackmail.

The plant predominates on the southern bank of a large reservoir on the Dnipro River. Ukrainian forces controlling towns and cities on the opposite bank have come under intense shelling from the Russian-held side.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of “hit the part of the nuclear power plant that generates the energy that powers southern Ukraine”.

“The aim is to disconnect us from (the factory) and blame the Ukrainian military for this,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter (NYSE:).

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is seeking to inspect the plant, has warned of a nuclear disaster unless hostilities stop. Nuclear experts fear the fighting could damage the plant’s spent fuel tanks or reactors.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia facility, which is still being operated by Ukrainian technicians.

For weeks, Kyiv said it was planning a counter-offensive to retake Zaporizhzhia and the neighboring Kherson provinces, the largest piece of territory Russia seized since the February 24 invasion and still in Russian hands.

Russian and Ukrainian forces had previously jostled for control of Chornobyl, the still radioactive site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, also raising fears of a disaster.

RUSSIA STRENGTHENS FORS IN THE SOUTH

Russia’s priority over the past week may be to reorient units to intensify its campaign in southern Ukraine, British military intelligence said on Sunday.

The British Ministry of Defense said that Russian-backed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in the eastern Donbas region continued to attack north of the city of Donetsk, the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence report. day on Twitter.

Particularly serious skirmishes have centered on the village of Pisky, near the Donetsk airport, it said. Ukraine’s military command on Saturday said “heavy fighting” continued in Pisky, an eastern village that Russia had previously claimed full control of.

The British military said the Russian attack was likely aimed at securing the M04 motorway, the main access road to Donetsk from the west.

GRAY TRAIN UKRAINE

The Turkish Defense Ministry said two more grain-carrying ships left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Saturday, bringing the number of ships to 16 departing under an agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey on Saturday. the end of July to partially alleviate the global food crisis.

Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said on Saturday that 16 ships carrying 450,000 tons of agricultural products have departed from Ukrainian seaports since the beginning of August during the ordeal, which ensures the safe passage of ships.

The MV Brave Commander, chartered by the United Nations, will leave Ukraine for Africa in the coming days after it completes unloading more than 23,000 tonnes of wheat at the port of Pivdennyi, a UN official said.

The ship to Ethiopia will be the first humanitarian food aid shipment to Africa since the start of the war, amid fears that the loss of Ukraine’s grain supplies could lead to an outbreak of famine.

In less than two weeks, Ukraine exported the same amount of grain from three ports as it did by land in July, Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine hopes to increase its maritime exports to more than 3 million tons of grain and other agricultural products per month in the near future.

Ukraine and Russia are major grain exporters. The congestion of Ukrainian ports has trapped tens of millions of domestic agricultural products, raising fears of severe food shortages and even outbreaks of hunger in many parts of the world.

DIPLOMATIC RIFT DEEPENS

Russia’s invasion, which it calls a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “demilitarizing” its smaller neighbour, has pushed Moscow-Washington relations to a low point, with the Russia warned it could cut ties.

The United States has led Ukraine’s Western allies in supplying the country with weapons for self-defence and punitive sanctions against Moscow.

A senior Russian official said on Friday that Moscow had told Washington that if the US Senate passed a bill declaring Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”, diplomatic relations would be severely damaged and even worse. lice can be severed.

On Saturday, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official warned that any US seizure of Russian assets would completely destroy bilateral relations, TASS reported.

Alexander Darchiev, the ministry’s head of North America, is quoted as saying that US influence over Ukraine has grown to the point where “Americans are becoming more and more direct parties to the conflict”.

The US and Europe, wary of being directly drawn into the war, have rejected Ukraine’s request for a no-fly zone to help it protect its skies from Russian missiles and warplanes. .

(This story comes together to correct the number to 23,000 in paragraph 20, correct the spelling of the word bound in paragraph 21)

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