Loud bomb blasts rocked Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, over the weekend. A heavy barrage of Russian military strikes — nearly 400 on Sunday alone — also hit Ukraine’s eastern regions, and heavy ground fighting was ongoing in eastern Donetsk province, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his evening briefing on Sunday. “The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely worrying,” Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a statement on Sunday. “There were explosions at the site of this large nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. “Whoever is behind this must be stopped immediately,” he added. “As I’ve said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” In fresh shelling near and at the site, IAEA experts at the Zaporizhia facility reported hearing more than a dozen explosions in a short period of time on Sunday morning and could see some explosions from their windows, the agency said. Later in the day, the IAEA said the shelling had stopped and that its experts would assess the situation on Monday. “There was damage to parts of the site, but no radiation release or loss of power,” it said. Speaking to French television, Grossi said it was clear the factory raids were not random. “People who do this know where they’re hitting. It is absolutely intentional, targeted.” Attacks in and around Zaporizhia have raised the risk of a nuclear disaster at the plant, which Russia seized shortly after invading Ukraine on February 24.
Black out
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other critical civilian infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts and leaving millions of Ukrainians without heat, power or water as temperatures plunge and snow begins to fall in the capital, Kyiv and other cities. Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom blamed Russian forces for the latest Zaporizhia bombing and said the targeted equipment was in line with the Kremlin’s intention to “destroy or destroy as much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as possible” as it enters the winter. Moscow, meanwhile, blamed Ukrainian forces for the damage. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov accused the Ukrainians of shelling the power plant twice on Sunday and said two shells landed near power lines that supply the plant with electricity. Ukraine said work was continuing to restore damage to the country’s energy infrastructure, but “stabilization blackouts” would be needed in 15 regions, including the capital on Sunday night. The country’s power company said there would be planned outages in every region on Monday. “Restoring networks and technical supply capabilities, demining power lines, repairs — everything is going on around the clock,” Zelensky said in his nightly speech. A man with a torch inside an apartment in a residential building in Kyiv during a power outage. Many cities are experiencing power shortages following Russian attacks on major infrastructure [Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters] Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were making small gains in the eastern Luhansk region and were holding their ground in fighting in the south. Russia withdrew its forces from the southern city of Kherson this month and moved some of them to strengthen positions in the east. “The toughest battles, as before, are in the Donetsk region. Although there were fewer attacks today due to worsening weather, the number of Russian bombings remains unfortunately extremely high,” Zelensky said. In the speech, the president again laid out Kiev’s terms for peace, including food and energy security, the release of all prisoners and deportees, and the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territory.
