Russia says it shot down Ukrainian drone at nuclear plant
ZAPORIZHZHIA
Ukraine announced on Monday the start of a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the south seized by Russian forces since their invasion six months ago, a move reflecting Kyiv’s growing confidence as Western military aid flows in.
The news came as a team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog headed to Ukraine to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – captured by Russian forces in March but still run by Ukrainian staff – that has become a hotspot in the war.
Moscow and Kyiv have traded accusations of shelling in the vicinity of the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest and close to front lines, amid fears of a radiation disaster in a country still haunted by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.
“Today we started offensive actions in various directions, including in the Kherson region,” Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne cited southern command spokeswoman Natalia Humeniuk as saying.
Russia rapidly captured swathes of Ukraine’s south near the Black Sea coast, including the city of Kherson, in the early phase of the war in stark contrast to its failed attempt to capture the capital Kyiv.
Ukraine has been using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to hit Russian ammunition dumps and wreak havoc with supply lines. Humeniuk told a briefing on Monday that Ukraine had struck more than 10 such ammunition dumps in the past week, adding they had “unquestionably weakened the enemy”.
She declined to give details of the counter-offensive, saying Russian forces in southern Ukraine remained “quite powerful”.
The governor of Ukraine’s Russian-annexed Crimea Peninsula, Sergei Aksyonov, dismissed her announcement as “another fake of Ukrainian propaganda”. Crimea is adjacent to the Kherson region.
Russia’s RIA news agency, quoting local official Vladimir Leontiev, reported that people were being evacuated from workplaces in Nova Kahokva, a town 58 km (36 miles) to the east of Kherson, after Ukrainian forces carried out more than 10 missile strikes there.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the IAEA mission must carry out its work in a politically neutral manner. “They must be objective,” she told Rossiya 24 television channel.
Russian forces fired at Enerhodar, the Dnipro riverside town where the plant is located, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said late on Sunday on his Telegram channel alongside a video of firefighters dousing burning cars. “They provoke and try to blackmail the world,” Andriy Yermak said.
