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Ukraine considers shutting down Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
Ukraine is considering shutting down its Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for safety reasons, and is worried about the reserves of diesel fuel used for backup generators, according to Kyiv’s top nuclear safety expert.
“The option of switching off the station is being assessed,” Oleh Korikov said during a news briefing on Wednesday.
Key events
Ukraine’s nuclear chief has said he would support the deployment of UN peacekeepers in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).
Petro Kotyn, the head of Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom, said in remarks broadcast by Ukrainian TV:
One of the ways to create a security zone at the ZNPP could be to set up a peacekeeping contingent there and withdraw Russian troops.
Kotyn’s remarks came a day after the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for a demilitarised zone around the nuclear plant, involving the withdrawal of Russian occupying troops and the agreement of Ukrainian forces not to move in.
Patrick Wintour
Britain’s former defence secretary Michael Fallon has said he did not understand leaders that opposed humiliating Putin.
It was necessary for the Russian president to lose and be humiliated, Fallon said at an event in Poland.
He also called for Ukraine to be provided with an air dome system to defend itself, adding that all this will be expensive but that the sacrifices required needed to be spelt out more clearly by western leaders as the war reaches a delicate stage.
Fallon also accused Europe of being myopic about the threat posed by Russia in Ukraine.
Putin to hold ‘serious’ meeting with China’s Xi Jinping next week, says official
Russia’s president Vladimir Putin will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan next week, according to a Russian official.
The pair plan to meet on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s summit in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on 15-16 September, Russia’s ambassador to China Andrei Denisov told reporters.
Denisov was quoted by Russian state-run news agency Tass as saying:
We are actively preparing for it.
It would the first face-to-face between the two leaders since Putin ordered his troops to invade Ukraine in February.
It would also be the Chinese leader’s first overseas trip since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Xi has only left mainland China once since the start of the pandemic, to make a one-day visit to Hong Kong.
The summit “promises to be interesting”, Denisov was also cited as saying. He added:
I do not want to say that online summits are not full-fledged, but still, direct communication between leaders is a different quality of discussion … We are planning a serious, full-fledged meeting of our leaders with a detailed agenda, which we are now, in fact, working on with our Chinese partners.
When asked about the trip, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said he had “nothing to offer” and did not provide any information.
Germany is well placed to “survive” the winter despite turmoil in the energy markets, its chancellor Olaf Scholz has said.
Scholz vowed that Germany will keep moving “at great speed” to shed its reliance on Russia for power, in a speech to parliament that was heavily critical of his predecessor chancellor Angela Merkel’s energy policies.
Germany has worked effectively to fill up its gas storage tanks and by speeding up the building of terminals to receive liquefied natural gas, Scholz said. The gas reserves, currently over 86% capacity, will be used to heat homes, generate electricity and power industry.
He added:
Because we started so early, when it wasn’t even such a big awareness of the problem in Germany, we are now in a situation that we can head into the winter courageously and bravely – our country can survive.
He said he was working to seal new cooperation with close European partners in order to “guarantee a secure energy supply” for the country.
We have spoken with our friends on the west European coast, with the Netherlands and Belgium for them to expand (LNG) terminals and pipeline capacities with France which will for the first time deliver gas to us.
Vladimir Putin has threatened to cut off energy supplies if price caps are imposed on Russia’s oil and gas exports.
Speaking at an economic forum in Vladivostok in Russia’s far east, the president said Russia “will not supply anything at all if it contradicts our interests … We will not supply gas, oil, coal, heating oil – we will not supply anything.”
A Ukrainian presidential adviser has described Russian complaints about a landmark deal allowing Ukraine to export grain from ports in the Black Sea as “flabbergasting”.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told Reuters:
The agreements signed in Istanbul … concern only one issue, and that is the transfer of cargo ships through the Black Sea.
He added:
Russia can’t dictate where Ukraine should send its grain, and Ukraine doesn’t dictate the same to Russia.
Russia’s foreign ministry has announced sanctions against a number of European military leaders and security figures in response to what Moscow described as the west’s “unfriendly anti-Russian” policy.
In a statement, it said it was banning a number of the European military leaders, senior security figures and representatives of weapons companies from entering Russia.
The ministry did not name the individuals.
Putin threatens to ‘freeze’ west by cutting gas and oil supplies if price caps imposed
Speaking at an economic forum in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin threatened to cut off energy supplies if price caps are imposed on Russia’s oil and gas exports.
The Russian leader described European calls for a price cap on Russian gas as “stupid” and said they would lead to higher global prices and economic problems in Europe.
Last week, G7 countries agreed on a plan to put a ceiling on Russian oil prices in an attempt to stem the flow of funds into the Kremlin’s war coffers.
Russia would walk away from its supply contracts if the west went ahead with its plans, Putin said.
The Russian president said:
Will there be any political decisions that contradict the contracts? Yes, we won’t fulfill them. We will not supply anything at all if it contradicts our interests.
He added:
We will not supply gas, oil, coal, heating oil – we will not supply anything.
Russia “would only have one thing left to do”, Putin said.
As in the famous Russian fairytale, we would sentence the wolf’s tail to be frozen.
He said Germany and western countries themselves were to blame for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline not being operational and that Ukraine and Poland decided on their own to switch off other gas routes into Europe.
He added:
Nord Steam 1 is practically closed now.
Summary of the day so far
Hello everyone. I’m Léonie Chao-Fong, taking over the blog from Tobi Thomas to bring you all the latest developments from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Here’s a quick roundup of what’s been happening so far:
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Ukraine is considering shutting down its Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for safety reasons, according to Kyiv’s top nuclear safety expert. Oleh Korikov also expressed concerns about the reserves of diesel fuel used for backup generators. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of threatening Europe’s nuclear security by shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and claimed Russia had no military equipment at the facility.
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The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency has warned we are facing “a very grave danger” as shelling continues at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. In his first television interview since leading an expert mission to the Russian-held plant, Rafael Grossi said what was “urgently needed” was to establish a protection around the perimeter of the facility.
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The UN nuclear watchdog has said its experts found extensive damage at Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in a report presented to the UN security council on Tuesday. The report also found Ukrainian staff were operating under constant high stress and pressure where there was an increased possibility of human error. “We are playing with fire and something very, very catastrophic could take place,” IAEA chief Grossi warned.
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The UN has called for a demilitarised zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. UN secretary general, António Guterres, urged the withdrawal of Russian occupying troops and the agreement of Ukrainian forces not to move in, and said he supported the recommendations put forward by the IAEA’s Grossi.
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Ukrainian forces have attacked the Russian-occupied eastern town of Balakliia in the Kharkiv region, a senior Russian-appointed official has said. Bezsonov added that if the town were lost, Russian forces in Izyum would become vulnerable on their north-west flank. Luhansk region governor Serhiy Gaidai told Ukrainian television that a “counter-attack is under way and … our forces are enjoying some success. Let’s leave it at that.”
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Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed a key strategic bridge used by Russian forces in Kherson. Ukraine’s armed forces shared a series of satellite images purporting to show the damaged structure on Tuesday night. The military added that the images show “significant damage to the Daryiv bridge itself” as well as damage to a building near the river.
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A “parallel” Ukrainian counteroffensive is occurring in eastern and north-eastern Ukraine as well as in the south, a senior presidential adviser has claimed. Writing on Telegram, Oleksiy Arestovych said in the coming months, Ukraine could expect the defeat of Russian troops in the Kherson region on the western bank of the Dnieper and a significant Ukraine advance in the east.
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Vladimir Putin has said western sanctions on Russia were short-sighted and a danger for the entire world, which he said was increasingly turning towards Asia. In a speech to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, he also claimed the developing world had been “cheated” by a landmark grain deal designed to alleviate a food crisis.
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Britain’s new prime minister Liz Truss and her US counterpart Joe Biden have promised to strengthen their relationship in the face of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. Truss’s call to Biden on Tuesday night followed a conversation with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and focused on what she called ”extreme economic problems caused by Putin’s war”.
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Putin said the way Britain chooses its leaders is “far from democratic”, a day after Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister. In his first public comments on Truss’s appointment, the Russian president alluded to the fact she was chosen in a leadership ballot by members of the Conservative party, not by the whole country.
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Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have reached an agreement in principle to restrict the entry of Russian citizens travelling from Russia and Belarus, the Latvian foreign minister said. Edgars Rinkēvičs said the increase of border crossings by Russian citizens was “a public security issue […] also an issue of a moral and political nature”.
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A Russian colonel who served as the military commandant of the occupied Ukrainian city of Berdiansk was reported to have been killed in a car bombing, according to Russian state media reports. Russian officials have alleged that Ukraine was behind the attack on Col Artyom Bardin. If true, it would be the most significant assassination yet of an official working for the occupational government of Russia in Ukraine.
Putin has also said that Ukraine had threatened Europe’s nuclear security by shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and that Russia had no military equipment at the facility.
Reuters reports:
The Russian president added that he trusted a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which visited the power station last week, but criticised the IAEA for not saying that Ukraine was to blame for shelling on the site.
Kyiv and Moscow both blame each other for military attacks on the site which has triggered fears of a Chornobyl-style nuclear disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
Ukraine considers shutting down Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
Ukraine is considering shutting down its Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant for safety reasons, and is worried about the reserves of diesel fuel used for backup generators, according to Kyiv’s top nuclear safety expert.
“The option of switching off the station is being assessed,” Oleh Korikov said during a news briefing on Wednesday.
Vladimir Putin has said the way Britain chooses its leaders is ‘far from democratic’
Vladimir Putin has said the way Britain chooses its leaders is “far from democratic”, a day after Liz Truss replaced Boris Johnson as prime minister.
In his first public comments on Truss’s appointment, the Russian president alluded to the fact she was chosen in a leadership ballot by members of the Conservative party, and not by the whole country.
“The people of Great Britain don’t take part, in this instance, in the change of government. The ruling elites there have their arrangements,” Putin told an economic forum in Vladivostok.
Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia had not lost anything in a global confrontation with the US over the conflict in Ukraine but had actually gained by setting a new sovereign course that would restore its global clout, the Russian president said on Wednesday during a speech to the Eastern Economic Forum.
Reuters reports:
Putin increasingly casts the conflict in Ukraine, which he calls a “special military operation”, as a turning point in history when Russia finally threw off the humiliations which accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
In an attempt to underscore Russia’s tilt towards Asia, Putin, speaking to the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, said that the West was failing while Asia was the future.
In his main speech, Putin hardly mentioned Ukraine beyond a reference to grain exports. But when asked by a moderator if anything had been lost from the conflict, Putin said Russia had gained and would emerge renewed and purged of hindrances.
“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999, said. “Everything that is unnecessary, harmful and everything that prevents us from moving forward will be rejected.”
“In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty, and this is the inevitable result of what is happening now,” Putin said. “This will ultimately strengthen our country from within.”
He did, though, acknowledge that the conflict had unleashed “a certain polarisation” in both the world and in Russia.
In his first television interview since leading an expert mission to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi tells CNN’s Christiane Amanpour we are facing “a very grave danger” as shelling continues at the plant.
“The situation continues to be very worrying,” Grossi said. “The shelling continues, so we are still facing a very grave danger. The mere fact there is continuity of attacks and shelling, deliberate or not, wittingly or unwittingly, people are hitting a nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. So I must say that the danger continues.”
He continued, underlining the huge dangers posed: “I demand nuclear safety is indispensable. Nuclear security is indispensable. We are playing with fire.”
When asked about the IAEA establishing a demilitarised zone around the nuclear plant, Grossi said there must be a differentiation between a demilitarised zone versus creating a “nuclear safety and security zone”.
“What we are talking about here is the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone immediately, which is perhaps more modest than a full demilitarisation of the area, but extremely effective in getting commitment from all sides to avoid any aiming at the plant, any shelling at the plant, any use of any means and calibers of artillery in a direction of the plant.”
Grossi continued: “What is urgently needed now – today – is that we agree on establishing a protection, a shield, a bubble around the perimeter of the facility. This is not something which is impossible to do – not at all. The IAEA has the mandate to protect the safety and security of the plant and the people there. I hope to consult very quickly and establish this as an interim measure in the hope that there will be further things.”
When asked whether the remaining IAEA inspectors would stay at the nuclear plant as part of a permanent mission, Grossi confirmed the IAEA would remain on site.
“And if somebody wants us to leave, then let that someone explain why is the IAEA forced to leave.”
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have reached agreement in principle to restrict the entry of Russian citizens travelling from Russia and Belarus, the Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs has said.
Reuters reports:
“In the last couple of weeks and months the border crossing by Russian citizens holding Schengen visas have dramatically increased.
This is becoming a public security issue, this is also an issue of a moral and political nature,” he told a press conference in Lithuania.
Putin claims developing world ‘cheated’ by landmark grain deal
Vladimir Putin, during the same speech, also claimed that the developing world had been “cheated” by a landmark grain deal designed to alleviate a food crisis.
Putin took aim at the deal, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, saying Ukrainian grain exports were not going to the world’s poorest countries.
He said:
Once again, they simply deceived developing countries and continue to deceive them. With this approach, the scale of food (supply) issues in the world will only increase, unfortunately. To our great regret, this can lead to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe.”
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has said the west’s sanctions on the country were short-sighted and a danger for the entire world, which he said was increasingly turning towards Asia.
In a speech to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said the west had undermined the global economy with an “aggressive” attempt to impose its dominance across the world.
He added that Russia had done everything it could to ensure Ukraine was able to export grain, but that problems in the global food market were likely to intensify and that a humanitarian catastrophe was looming.
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