Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After a relative lull, Russia launched a drone attack early Sunday on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, officials said. It was the first such attack of the war in 12 days.

All of the Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones were detected and shot down, according to Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv city administration. In addition to the city itself, the surrounding Kyiv region was targeted. Kyiv regional Gov. Ruslan Kravchenko reported that one person was wounded by falling debris from a destroyed drone.

Officials in the Ukrainian capital didn't provide an exact number of drones that attacked the city. But Ukraine's air force said that across the country, eight Shaheds and three Kalibr cruise missiles were launched by the Russians.

Further south, a 13-year-old boy was wounded in overnight shelling of Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Kherson province, said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesman for the Ukrainian administration of the province.

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The child was wounded when the Russian army shelled the village of Mylove on the banks of the Dnieper River in the Beryslav district, Tolokonnikov said.

“The child was hospitalized, there is no threat to his life,” Tolokonnikov added,” he said on state TV.

Shelling of Kherson province continued Sunday morning, wounding four people in the regional capital, also called Kherson. The regional prosecutor’s office said that a residential area of the city was targeted by Russian troops operating in the Russia-occupied part of the Kherson province. “

"At least four citizens were wounded, two of them due to a targeted strike on a high-rise building,” the office wrote on Telegram.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military reported that the most intense fighting continued in Ukraine’s industrial east, with attacks focused around Bakhmut, Marinka and Lyman in the country’s Donetsk province, where 46 combat clashes took place.

Ukrainian forces were advancing amid a “massive offensive” on the southern and northern flanks of the destroyed city of Bakhmut, Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces spokesman Serhii Cherevaty told Ukrainian state television. But he didn't mention how much progress they made. The details, he said, would be disclosed once Ukrainian forces had analyzed the situation and consolidated their positions.

In its regular update Sunday morning, the General Staff said that over the previous 24 hours, Russia had carried out 27 airstrikes, one missile strike and around 80 attacks from multiple rocket launchers, targeting regions in the north, northeast, east and south of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Black Sea port city of Odesa on Sunday — the day the country honors its navy — to hear a report from the navy commander, discuss prospects for the development of a naval drone and missile program, as well as present awards to service members.

In Russia, local officials reported that air defense systems shot down a drone over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, while the neighboring Kursk region faced shelling attacks. No casualties or damage were reported.

Following the drama of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion last week, Russian authorities remained defiant. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin came out of this situation “having strengthened his position even more both in the country and in the world.”

Russian society, he said, “having passed this test, has shown its maturity.” According to Volodin, there was “not a single example of someone supporting the rebellion.”

But Gen. Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of the Russian group of forces fighting in Ukraine, was believed to have been detained days after the mutiny. It’s not clear whether Surovikin, who has longtime links to Prigozhin, faces any charges or where he is being held, reflecting the opaque world of the Kremlin’s politics and uncertainty after the revolt.

Writing on Telegram, Volodin said that the Russian president “did everything to prevent bloodshed and confusion,” including explaining to Wagner fighters “the real state of affairs.” “(Putin) suggested that those who want to defend Russia continue their service with weapons in their hands. As far as I know, many of them agreed to this,” Volodin said.

In addition, the speaker of the State Duma said that he had analyzed the “challenges” Russia faced in the past, affirming that if “someone like Putin” had been leading the country in 1917 and 1991, there wouldn't have been a revolution in Russia, and the USSR wouldn't have collapsed.

But independent observers and analysts say that Putin may come out politically weakened after first announcing that Wagner would face harsh repercussions, only to later say that the group’s forces wouldn’t face prosecution. Prigozhin was also allowed to leave Russia for Belarus.

Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said Sunday that Poland would send 500 police officers to join 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers already on the country’s border with Belarus. It follows an announcement earlier this week that Poland would strengthen defenses on its eastern border after the relocation of Wagner fighters to Belarus.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1675437064534257667?t=oWd660NhpaXkFzaDMnI5Dg&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1675418956612370433?t=K1oYjn_uOOxW4Mu8tYEzgA&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1675331195297755142?t=OjynLg7WRg-VKbj5yfUIUQ&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1675922256352903169?t=5-LKqqOdPK0uTuZwELt3Fw&s=19

gimmesometruth27 · July 2023

this is the stupidest game of risk in like, forever.

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1675925427959767041?t=knJZ6sN1d8VncV7EM1hUQQ&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1676299615283343363?t=FSZOtcx5ZomIf8m6mMWkpg&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/status/1675987761940033536?t=ICcMQCPGDTQZeEm1MZcNpw&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1676305445961474048?t=UqBrlQ9ko3b7paQwjbZh_A&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1676261718538825728?t=sTmBtAeepLgABedr5pfw0w&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1676217262288535559?t=knhLw867NSWQQ6F7ztTZ0g&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/IntelCrab/status/1676285340573638663?t=SYESs13EwhIiGFP9D3AHuA&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1676336904285966336?t=buJYNZWvTcxSKmMtl6Ormw&s=19

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-nuclear-977195f0ef72c1601ce17e83ff9da81 8

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of preparing imminent attack on Europe's biggest nuclear plant

By Samya Kullab

1 minute ago

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine and Russia accused each other Wednesday of planning to attack one of the world's largest nuclear power plants, which is located in southeastern Ukraine and occupied by Russian troops, but neither side provided evidence to support their claims of an imminent threat.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been a focus of concern since Moscow's forces took control of it and its staff in the early stages of the war. Over the last year, the U.N.'s atomic watchdog repeatedly expressed alarm over the possibility of a radiation catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl after a reactor exploded in 1986.

While Russia and Ukraine regularly traded blame over shelling near the plant that caused power outages, Ukraine has alleged more recently that Moscow might try to cause a deliberate leak in an attempt to derail Kyiv’s ongoing counteroffensive in the surrounding Zaporizhzhia region.

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Citing the latest intelligence reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged Tuesday night that Russian troops had placed “objects resembling explosives" on top of several power units to “simulate” an attack as part of a false flag operation.

The “foreign objects” were placed on the roof of the plant's third and fourth power units, according to a statement from the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces. “Their detonation should not damage power units but may create a picture of shelling from Ukraine," the statement said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has officials stationed at the Russian-held plant, which is still run by its Ukrainian staff. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency's most recent inspection of the plant found no mining activities, “but we remain extremely alert.”

“As you know, there is a lot of combat, I have been there a few weeks ago, and there is contact there very close to the plant, so we cannot relax,” Grossi said during a visit to Japan.

In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov raised the specter of a potentially “catastrophic” provocation by the Ukrainian army at the nuclear plant, which is Europe’s largest but has its six reactors shut down. It still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

“The situation is quite tense. There is a great threat of sabotage by the Kyiv regime, which can be catastrophic in its consequences,” Peskov said in response to a reporter’s question about the plant. He also claimed that the Kremlin was pursuing “all measures” to counter the alleged Ukrainian threat.

Grossi said he was aware of both Kyiv’s and Moscow’s claims and reiterated that “nuclear power plants should never, under any circumstances, be attacked."

"A nuclear power plant should not be used as a military base,” he said.

Peskov's comments came after Renat Karchaa, an advisor to Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom, said there was “no basis” for Zelenskyy's claims of a plot to simulate an explosion.

“Why would we need explosives there? This is nonsense, (aimed at) maintaining tension around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” Karchaa said.

Russian media on Tuesday cited Karchaa as saying that Ukraine’s military planned to strike the plant early Wednesday with ammunition laced with nuclear waste. As of Wednesday afternoon, there was no indication of such an attack.

Last week, Ukrainian emergency workers held a drill to prepare for a potential release of radiation from the plant. According to the country's emergency services, in case of a nuclear disaster at the plant, approximately 300,000 people would be evacuated from the areas closest to the facility.

Ukrainian officials have said the shut-down reactors are protected by thick concrete containment domes.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies said last week that “a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia would probably not lead to the widespread dispersal of significant amounts of radiation" due to precautionary steps taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

However, the think tank noted in an assessment that wind might blow some amount of radiation toward Russia.

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Mari Yamaguchi contributed from Okuma, Japan.

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Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

mickeyrat · July 2023

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1676560098250960899?t=96hT3UIoGhGkZXV_crk3xQ&s=19

Ukraine

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