Ukraine latest updates: IAEA demands access to nuclear plant

UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for military activity around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex to end as the UN Security Council met to discuss the situation.

“The facility must not be used as part of any military operation. Instead, urgent agreement is needed at a technical level on a safe perimeter of demilitarization to ensure the safety of the area,” Guterres said in a statement.

The United States backed the call for a demilitarised zone around the plant, the US under-secretary for arms control and international security, Bonnie Jenkins, told the Security Council. She said a visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “cannot wait any longer”.

Oil flows have resumed from Russia to Hungary and Slovakia via the Ukrainian section of the Druzhba oil pipeline, Ukraine’s Naftogaz has said, days after they were suspended over payment issues.

Naftogaz’s JSC Ukrtransnafta pipeline operator said it resumed operations upon receiving payment from Hungarian oil company MOL on Wednesday evening.

Ukraine had halted Russian oil shipments via Druzhba on August 4, after Western sanctions prevented it from receiving transit fees from Moscow.

Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations has accused Ukraine of “criminal attacks” on the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that are “pushing the world to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe”.

“We repeatedly warned our Western colleagues that if they didn’t talk some sense into the Kyiv regime, then it would take the most monstrous and irrational steps, the consequences of which will reverberate far beyond the borders of Ukraine,” Vasily Nebenzya said in an address to the UN Security Council.

“Unfortunately, that is what is now happening,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged the international community to “react immediately” to force Russian forces to leave the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant that has been shelled in recent days.

“The entire world must react immediately to chase out the occupiers from Zaporizhzhia. Only the Russians’ full withdrawal … would guarantee nuclear safety for all of Europe,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video address.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has demanded access to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “as soon as possible” to ascertain its safety after multiple strikes hit the compound.

“I ask that both sides cooperate… and allow for a mission of the IAEA to proceed as soon as possible,” Rafael Mariano Grossi said in an address to the UN Security Council.

Grossi said the IAEA had received updates from both Ukraine and Russia, but that the information provided was often contradictory.

“So I propose, I plead to call this mission as soon as possible,” he said, adding that preventing a nuclear disaster was a “collective responsibility”.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has verified 445 attacks on medical facilities and service providers since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, resulting in 105 injuries and 86 deaths.

“These attacks deprive people of urgently needed care, endanger health-care providers, and undermine health systems,” the UN agency said in its latest report.

“Access to health care continues to be severely impacted due to security concerns, restricted mobility, broken supply chains and mass displacement,” it added.

WHO said 6.2 million people had crossed to Europe as refugees, while 6.6 million were internally displaced inside Ukraine as of July 23.

Ukraine is aiming to evacuate two-thirds of residents from areas it controls in the eastern battleground region of Donetsk before winter, partly out of concern people will not be able to stay warm amid war-damaged infrastructure, the deputy prime minister has said.

The government plans to evacuate some 220,000 people out of approximately 350,000, including 52,000 children, Iryna Vereshchuk told a news conference.

She said thousands should leave before winter comes because the fighting has destroyed power and heating infrastructure.

Belarus has said blasts heard overnight at one of its military bases 30km from Ukraine were caused by a “technical incident”.

At least eight explosions were heard after midnight near Zyabrovka military airport, according to reports on Telegram messenger.

The incident occurred after powerful explosions rocked Russia’s Saky airbase earlier this week in Russian-ruled Crimea, which Moscow had termed an accident.

The Belarusian defence ministry said “the engine of a vehicle caught fire after replacement … There were no casualties.” Ukraine has declined to publicly claim responsibility for the explosions at the base, while also not denying involvement.

Ukraine’s interior minister has said Ukraine is making contingency plans to face any scenario at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, including evacuating people from the area.

“The plant is as of today not only in the hands of the enemy, but in the hands of uneducated specialists who could potentially allow for a tragedy to happen,” interior minister Denys Monastyrsky told Reuters in an interview.

“Of course, it’s difficult to even imagine the scale of the tragedy which could come into effect if Russians continue their actions there,” he said.

Moscow and Kyiv have each accused the other of striking the compound on Thursday and over the weekend.

The United Nations chief has called for an immediate end to all military activity around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, warning that any damage could lead to “catastrophic consequences” in the region and beyond.

In a statement issued before a UN Security Council meeting to discuss security at the plant, Antonio Guterres appealed “for common sense and reason” to avoid any actions “that might endanger the physical integrity, safety or security of the nuclear plant”.

Guterres issued a separate statement earlier in the day, before the site of the nuclear plant was struck five times, according to Ukraine’s state nuclear operator.

Western countries have committed more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.55 billion) in cash, equipment and training to boost Ukraine’s military capabilities in its war against Russia, Danish defence minister Morten Bodskov has said.

The money, which was pledged by a group of 26 countries at a conference in Copenhagen, will be used to supply existing weapons, missiles and ammunition, increase weapon production for Ukraine, train Ukrainian soldiers, and de-mine war-torn areas in Ukraine.

“We will continue to assist Ukraine in its military needs,” Bodskov told journalists at the end of the conference.

Shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has damaged “several radiation sensors”, Ukraine’s nuclear agency has said.

Energoatom said the new attacks were close to one of the Russian-controlled Ukrainian plant’s six reactors and there was “extensive smoke”, adding that “several radiation sensors are damaged”.

A reserve officer of the German armed forces has been put on trial for allegedly passing sensitive information to the Russian foreign intelligence service GRU between 2014 and 2020.

The 65-year-old is on trial at the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court, and if convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

According to the indictment, the man from Erkrath near Dusseldorf betrayed information on the inner workings of the Bundeswehr’s reserve system and on civilian-military cooperation in crisis situations.

Read more here.

Former Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova has been placed under house arrest for two months after being charged with spreading fake news about Russia’s armed forces, Interfax news agency has reported.

Interfax quoted Moscow’s Basmanny district court as saying that Ovsyannikova had been placed under house arrest until October 9.

She was fined twice in separate cases for protesting against the war in Ukraine, including by interrupting a live national news bulletin in March, shouting “Stop the war!” and holding up a placard telling viewers not to believe state propaganda.

The Basmanny district court’s decision relates to a protest in July when she stood on a river embankment opposite the Kremlin and held up a poster calling President Vladimir Putin a murderer and his soldiers fascists.

Canada has announced it will boost a more-than-$6bn annual foreign aid budget to help the most hard-hit countries in Africa and the Middle East respond to the global food crisis.

“The Ukraine crisis is creating shock waves when it comes to supply chain and especially food security and impacting the most vulnerable at the most difficult time,” Harjit Sajjan, Canadian minister of international development, told Reuters in an interview in Jordan.

“We have increased our support for the Middle East region when it comes to food,” he said, citing Lebanon as an example. Canada will also increase aid to Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, and to Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria.

Estonia has decided to bar Russian citizens in possess of tourist visas from entering the country as a consequence of the war in Ukraine.

The European Union, of which Estonia is a member, banned air travel from Russia after it invaded Ukraine. Russians could still travel by land to Estonia and take flights to other European destinations from there.

“Russian citizens’ opportunity to visit Estonia in large numbers or to visit Europe through Estonia is incompatible with the meaning of the sanctions we’ve established,” foreign minister Urmas Reinsalu was quoted as saying by the Baltic News Service.

The head of the Moscow-installed regional administration in Zaporizhzhia has said radiation levels around the nuclear plant remained normal after Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of hitting the facility.

“No contamination has been recorded at the station, radiation levels are normal,” Yevgeny Balitsky said on Telegram.

Ukraine state energy company Energoatom has said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power complex was shelled again, putting the blame on Russian forces that seized the area in March.

Energoatom said the plant’s area was hit five times, including near the site where radioactive materials are stored, but that nobody was injured and the situation at the plant remained under control.

The site of Europe’s largest nuclear power was hit over the weekend, triggering a stark warning from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

READ MORE:

• What happens if Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant explodes?
• G7 urges Russia to return control of nuclear plant to Ukraine
• Russia-Ukraine latest updates: Zaporizhzhia attacks trigger alarm
• ‘Russian nuclear terror’: Ukraine atomic plant attacked again

Ukraine’s special envoy for the Middle East has warned Arab countries against “Russian meddling in regional affairs”, accusing Moscow of sending mercenaries to the region in order to plan “coups” and “plunder these countries’ wealth”.

Maksym Subkh addressed the Arab League by video conference just weeks after the group hosted Russia’s foreign minister and also blamed Moscow for preventing Ukrainian wheat deliveries to the region.

“Ukraine today has 20 million tonnes of grain ready to be exported, principally to Arab and African states,” Subkh said, adding that “the siege of our ports by the Russian invaders” had blocked deliveries.

Some ships have been able to leave Ukrainian ports in recent days after a deal with Russia brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

New satellite images released by Planet Lab have confirmed that a Russian airbase in Crimea was heavily damaged on Tuesday.

It is unclear what caused simultaneous explosions to occur. Western military experts said the scale of the damage and the apparent precision suggest Ukraine may have used new military assets.

Kyiv did not confirm attacking the facility. “Officially, we are not confirming or denying anything; there are numerous scenarios for what might have happened … bearing in mind that there were several epicentres of explosions at exactly the same time,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters in a message.

Russia has denied aircraft were damaged and said explosions were accidental.