Putin accuses Ukraine of trying to strike Kursk nuclear power plant

Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused Ukraine of attempting to strike the Kursk nuclear power plant in the Russian region of the same name, which has been under attack by Kiev's forces for two weeks and where the head of the IAEA is due to visit soon.

Since August 6, Ukraine has launched thousands of its troops to attack this Russian border region, seizing dozens of towns and several hundred square kilometers. The Kursk nuclear power plant is located about fifty kilometers from their positions.

“The enemy tried to strike the nuclear power plant during the night,” the Russian president said during a televised meeting with members of his government and the governors of Ukraine's border regions.

M. Putin did not provide any details or directly present any evidence on the matter, but he assured that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had “been informed” of the attack and had “promised to send specialists to assess the situation.”

Contacted by AFP, the IAEA did not immediately comment.

A resident on a bicycle passes destroyed buildings in Myrnohrad, Ukraine, on August 21, 2024 © AFP – Genya SAVILOV

Earlier on Thursday, a spokesperson for the agency told AFP that its director general, Rafael Grossi, would visit the Kursk nuclear power plant “next week.”

For several days, Moscow has been threatening a nuclear disaster if the Ukrainian army attacks the site.

On August 9, the IAEA called on both sides to exercise “maximum restraint to avoid a nuclear accident.”

– Zelensky near the border –

A still from a video released by the press service of the Ukrainian Presidency on August 11, 2024, showing a fire in a cooling tower of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Energodar, southern Ukraine © Press Service of the Ukrainian Presidency – Handout

Since the beginning of the conflict, the IAEA has warned of the risk of a catastrophe, particularly at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, occupied by Russia since March 2022.

The administration of the Kursk plant had stated in October 2023 that it had been the target of three Ukrainian drones, which had however caused no casualties or damage.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday that he had visited the Sumy region, which faces Kursk on the other side of the border, where he met with the commander of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky.

He announced the conquest of a new locality on Russian territory, which brings the total claimed at 94, and the capture of new prisoners among the Russian soldiers.

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The Russian army, for its part, claimed to continue to inflict heavy losses on the Ukrainians in the region and prevent their attempts to break through in depth.

Ukraine: Russian advance towards Pokrovsk © AFP – Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Sabrina BLANCHARD

Since the start of the Ukrainian offensive in Russia, more than 130,000 people have fled the fighting and bombings, according to authorities in the Kursk region. At least 31 civilians were killed and 143 injured, according to the state news agency TASS.

In a sign of the seriousness of the situation, the Russian authorities declared Thursday that classes in more than a hundred schools would be organized remotely at the start of the school year.

In the neighboring Bryansk region, Governor Alexander Bogomaz assured that the situation is “under control” after an attempted incursion by a group of Ukrainian “saboteurs” the day before and drone attacks.

– Ferry and airfield targeted –

After being hit by a Ukrainian attack, a ferry carrying fuel tankers sank on Thursday in a Russian port located in the Kerch Strait, opposite Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, according to regional authorities.

The rail-road bridge that links the two territories has also been targeted several times by Ukrainian forces, forcing Russia to find other ways to supply Crimea.

“We must all understand that in order to drive the occupier out of our country, we must create as many problems as possible for the Russian state on its territory,” President Zelensky said the same day.

A source within the security services (SBU) also reported to AFP a strike by Ukrainian forces against a Russian airbase in Marinovka, in the Volgograd region, more than 300 km from the border.

Russia: Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region © AFP – Valentin RAKOVSKY, Cléa PECULIER, Paz PIZARRO

The governor of the Russian region of Volgograd, Andrei Botcharov, indicated that the debris of a downed Ukrainian drone had started a fire “in a facility of the Ministry of Defense”, without other details.

In Donbass, the Ukrainian industrial East where most of the fighting is still concentrated, the Russian army claimed to have captured a new village near the Pokrovsk logistics hub, Mezhové.

The Russian soldiers are now about ten kilometers from Pokrovsk, a town of 53,000 inhabitants whose residents have been called to evacuate.

The Russian advance in this sector of the front does not seem to be weakening, contrary to what the Ukrainian authorities hoped when they launched their operation in the Kursk region.

Ukraine also says it wants to create a “buffer zone” in Russia and force Moscow into “fair” peace negotiations.

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