United Nations investigators are due to enter Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, having warned of a “close call” after the most intense shelling in months at the Russian-held facility.
While Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the barrage of attacks on the plant over the past two days, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, warned that whoever was responsible is “playing with fire”.
The strikes came “dangerously close” to impacting “key nuclear safety and security systems” at the plant, he said, adding: “We are talking metres, not kilometres.”
Further east, on the Luhansk frontline, there have been “intense artillery exchanges” in the Svatove area, thought to be a “vulnerable flank” of Russia’s, where Vladimir Putin’s war commanders are “likely struggling with the military realities of maintaining a credible defence”, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has suggested.
In a speech marking Ukraine’s Day of Dignity and Freedom, Volodymyr Zelensky vowed that his country “will endure” as he looked ahead to a “peaceful Ukraine”.
