Artillery fire rained down on Nikopoli, a city near Zaporizhia – Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, while rockets struck near the Black Sea port of Odessa at the weekend. Zelensky urged vigilance, saying Moscow could try “something particularly bad” ahead of Wednesday, which marks Ukraine’s Independence Day and also half a year since Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Zelensky said he had discussed “all the threats” with French President Emmanuel Macron and that a message had also been sent to other leaders, including Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “All of Ukraine’s partners have been informed about what the terrorist state can prepare this week,” Zelensky said in a video address overnight, referring to Russia. He also said that if Russia went ahead with plans to try captured Ukrainian defenders in Mariupol, then it would have broken international rules and cut itself out of the negotiations. “If this despicable show trial were to proceed … that would be the line beyond which negotiations are no longer possible,” he said. “There will be no more talks. The state has told us everything.” The Financial Times, in an article published on Sunday, quoted Gennady Gatilov, Moscow’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, as saying that Erdogan had tried to facilitate dialogue. However, he dismissed speculation about talks between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “there was no practical platform for this meeting to take place,” the report said. In Russia, authorities are investigating a suspected car bomb attack outside Moscow that killed the daughter of Alexander Dugin, an ultranationalist Russian ideologue who advocates Russia absorbing Ukraine. read more While investigators said they were looking at “all options” when it came to determining who was responsible, Russia’s foreign ministry speculated there could be a link to Ukraine, which an adviser to Zelensky dismissed. “Ukraine, of course, had nothing to do with it because we are not a criminal state, like the Russian Federation, and moreover we are not a terrorist state,” Mykhailo Podolyak said on Ukrainian television.
MORE RUSSIAN STRIKES
As Ukraine prepared to mark its Independence Day, embroiled in a war that has leveled towns and cities, killed thousands and forced millions to flee, officials reported more Russian strikes on targets in the east and south of the country. In the eastern Bakhmut region, Russian forces damaged artillery and multiple rocket launchers in the areas of Soledar, Zaytseve and Bilogorivka settlements, the General Staff of Ukraine said in its daily briefing on Monday. They continued to focus their efforts on establishing full control over the territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, retaining the occupied Kherson regions and parts of Kharkiv, Zaporizhia and Mykolayiv regions, the General Staff added. The bombardment of Nikopolis is of particular concern. As a result of overnight rocket attacks in Nikopol, Krivyi Rih and Synelnykovsky districts of Dnipropetrovsk region, four people were injured, regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko wrote on Telegram on Monday. In the past 24 hours, two civilians were killed in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the regional administration said. Russia denies targeting civilians. Fighting near Zaporizhia and a missile attack on the southern city of Voznesensk, not far from Ukraine’s second-largest nuclear plant, have raised fears of a nuclear accident. On Sunday, US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Macron held a phone call stressing the importance of ensuring the safety of nuclear facilities while underlining their “firm commitment” to Ukraine. read more Moscow says it is engaged in a “special military operation” to disarm and “denuclearize” its neighbor. Ukraine and its allies say Moscow has launched an unprovoked war of aggression. Russia said on Sunday that Kalibr missiles destroyed an ammunition depot containing US-made missiles for HIMARS missiles in southeastern Ukraine’s Odesa, home to ports critical to a UN-brokered plan to help Ukrainian agricultural exports regain in world markets. Kyiv said a granary was hit. read more Reuters was unable to independently verify reports on the battlefield. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Ron Popeski and Natalia Zinets. Written by Himani Sarkar. Edited by Stephen Coates Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
