NIKOPOL, UKRAINE (AP/AFP) – Only hours after the latest international pleas to spare the area around Ukraine’s main nuclear plant from attacks, there were new claims of Russian shelling close to the Zaporizhzhya facilities early yesterday.
Nikopol, on the opposite bank of the Dnieper River and about 10 kilometres downstream from the plant, came under fire three times during the night from rockets and mortars, hitting houses, a kindergarten, the bus station and stores, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. There was no information on injuries or loss of life.
Reports of sustained shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant further highlighted the dangers of a war that will hit the half-year mark tomorrow.
After United Nations (UN) Secretary General Antonio Guterres again urged caution during a visit to Ukraine last week, United States (US) President Joe Biden further discussed the issue with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on Sunday.
The four leaders stressed the need to avoid military operations in the region to prevent the possibility of a potentially devastating nuclear accident and called for the UN’s atomic energy agency to be allowed to visit the facilities as soon as possible.
Yet, nothing seemed certain in a war that has spread fear and unease far beyond the frontlines in eastern and southern Ukraine and also into the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula and as far as Moscow, where on Saturday night a car blast killed the daughter of an influential Russian political theorist often referred to as “Putin’s brain.”
Yesterday, Russian authorities were looking for further clues who could be behind the incident, after authorities said preliminary information indicated 29-year-old TV commentator Daria Dugina was killed by an explosive planted in the SUV she was driving.
A former Russian opposition lawmaker, Ilya Ponomarev, said an unknown Russian group, the National Republican Army, claimed responsibility for the bombing. The AP could not verify the existence of the group. Ponomarev, who left Russia after voting against its annexation of Crimea in 2014, made the statement to Ukrainian TV.
Ukraine officials have denied involvement.
Meanwhile, Russia might take the provocative step of putting Ukrainian soldiers on trial as Kyiv marks 31 years of independence for the war-ravaged country next week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned on Sunday.
Zelenskyy cited media reports that Russia was preparing to put Ukrainian fighters captured during the siege of Mariupol on a public trial to coincide with the independence anniversary tomorrow.
Ukraine’s Independence Day, tomorrow, will also mark six months since Russia invaded the former Soviet republic, in a devastating war that has cost thousands of lives.
“If this despicable court takes place, if our people are brought into these settings in violation of all agreements, all international rules, there will be abuse,” Zelenskyy warned in an evening address.
“This will be the line beyond which no negotiations are possible.”
The capital Kyiv has already announced a ban on public gatherings. Kharkiv too, declared a curfew around the holiday.
Zelenskyy was returning to a subject he had already raised in the previous night’s remarks.
“Russia could try to do something particularly disgusting, particularly cruel,” he warned late Saturday.
“One of the key objectives of the enemy is to humiliate us,” and “to sow despondency, fear and conflict”. But he added: “We have to be strong enough to resist all provocation” and “make the occupiers pay for their terror”.
A presidential advisor, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said Russia could intensify its bombing campaign.
“Russia is an archaic state that links its actions to certain dates, it’s an obsession of sorts,” the Interfax-Ukraine news agency quoted him as saying.
“They hate us and will try to increase… the number of bombings of our cities including Kyiv with cruise missiles,” Podolyak added.
Kyiv authorities on Sunday banned public gatherings from August 22 to 25.
