Drone hit nuclear facilities as Kyiv, Moscow trade strikes | Today’s news
(Bloomberg) — Ukraine and Russia traded airstrikes on Saturday as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held what he called a special next-step meeting with top advisers.
A Ukrainian drone struck the machine room building of one of the energy units of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine on Saturday afternoon, causing unspecified damage, Interfax reported, citing Rosatom CEO Alexei Lichachev. Basic equipment was not damaged, he said.
Ukraine’s southern military command denied any strikes, saying its military personnel “acted solely within the framework of international humanitarian law and are aware of the consequences of any actions against nuclear facilities.” In a Facebook post late on Saturday, he added: “It is the Russian Federation that has illegally kept the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant under military control since March 2022, making the civilian nuclear facility part of the military infrastructure.
On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said the Zaporizhia power plant temporarily lost all electricity off-site for the 16th time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. No cause was immediately identified. The plant’s six reactors are in a state of “cold shutdown” and produced electricity for the last time in 2022.
Earlier, a Ukrainian UAV attack on the Russian port of Taganrog caused a tanker, a fuel tank and an administrative building to catch fire, the regional governor said in a post on his Telegram channel on Saturday. No casualties or fuel leaks were reported, Yury Slyusar, the governor of Rostov Oblast, told Telegram. The fire was extinguished.
Robert Brovdi, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, confirmed the strike, adding that the drones destroyed two Tu-142 aircraft and an Iskander ballistic missile launcher at the Taganrog military air base. He also said that an oil terminal in Feodosia on the Crimean Peninsula had been hit.
Taganrog is located in southern Russia, on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov. The city was also attacked on 27 May.
A fire broke out at an oil warehouse in Armavir in southern Russia’s Krasnodar region, caused by falling debris from a drone in a strike confirmed by Zelensky. The fire was extinguished and no casualties were reported, according to the Telegram post of the regional authorities.
Separately, Ukraine came under attack by Russian drones and missiles. Its air defense unit said it shot down five of seven missiles and 279 of 290 drones fired overnight.
The town of Shostka in the Sumy region, near the Ukrainian border with Russia, suffered extensive damage to the railway station. The facility is a regional hub for the city, with a pre-war population of about 72,000, where “hundreds of civilians leave every day,” Ukraine’s state-run Ukrzaliznytsia said on Facebook. Odessa on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea was also under fire from drones.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that it struck a group of targets – including military airfields, energy and transport infrastructure used by Ukraine’s armed forces – using long-range, high-precision ground and air weapons, as well as drones.
In a post on X, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “in daily contact with the envoys of the President of the United States and our European partners” in seeking an end to the conflict, now in its fifth year.
Priorities for the coming weeks include anti-ballistic missile capabilities, new decisions to support Ukraine’s energy sector and a potential drone deal with the European Union.
According to a photo published on X, Zelensky’s meeting was attended by Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal, head of the presidential office Kyrylo Budanov and chief negotiator Rustem Umerov.
–With the help of Olesia Safronová.
(Updated with Ukraine’s refusal to strike Zaporozhye in the third paragraph)
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