It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. The site of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia was bombed for the second time in just over 24 hours this weekend. As after the previous bombardments of Friday August 5 on these installations located in the south of Ukraine and which fell in the hands of Russian soldiers at the beginning of March, the two belligerents mutually accused each other on Sunday August 7 of having attacked them.
In addition, from the east to the south of Ukraine, military operations continued this weekend. Russian attacks have killed at least five civilians in the eastern region of Donetsk, said its governor Pavlo Kirilenko.
The site of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia was bombed for the second time in just over 24 hours this weekend. Occupation authorities in the city of Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhia power plant is located, claimed that the Ukrainian army had fired a cluster munitions device with a "Hurricane multiple rocket launcher" overnight from Saturday to Sunday. ". "The shrapnel and rocket engine fell 400 meters from a working reactor," they continued, adding that the strike had "damaged" administrative buildings and hit "a spent nuclear fuel storage area." .
At the same time, the Ukrainian state company Energoatom announced that one of the employees on site had to be hospitalized for "wounds caused by the explosion" of one of the rockets fired "Saturday evening" by the Russians. "Three radiation monitoring detectors around the plant site have been damaged (...). Consequently, it is currently impossible to detect" a possible increase in radioactivity and therefore to "intervene in good time", a she added.
“There is not a single nation in the world that can feel safe when a terrorist state bombs a nuclear power plant,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted in his daily video.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) judged on Saturday August 6 "more and more alarming" the information coming from the Zaporijjia power plant, one of whose reactors had to be shut down after the attack on the standby. The Ukrainian authorities had accused the Russians of carrying out three strikes on this site on Friday. Moscow had for its part assured that Ukrainian shells had hit it. When the plant was taken over, the Russian military had opened fire on buildings, at the risk of a major nuclear accident.
The UN Secretary General described this Monday, August 8 as "suicidal" any attack against nuclear power plants and called for the cessation of military operations around that of Zaporijjia, Ukraine, so that the International Agency for the atomic energy (IAEA) can access it.
"Any attack on nuclear power plants is a suicidal thing," Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Tokyo. "I hope that these attacks will end. At the same time, I hope that the IAEA will be able to access the plant" in Zaporijjia.
For the past week, the UN Secretary General has continued to worry about nuclear risks to humanity, which is only "a misunderstanding" or "an error of judgment" from "nuclear annihilation", he had warned on August 1 in a speech in New York. Saturday, on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, he felt that humanity was playing "with a loaded gun" in the context of current crises with nuclear connotations.
Ukrainian forces again struck an important bridge in Kherson, a city in the south of the country occupied by Russian troops, overnight from Sunday to Monday, the authorities in kyiv announced. “What a night for the occupiers in the Kherson region. Strikes in the area of the Antonovskiy bridge,” regional deputy Serguii Khlan said on Facebook.
These strikes were confirmed by the spokeswoman for the Southern Command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Natalia Goumenyuk. "The fire control that we have been developing for several days is having results. The impacts are considerable for both the Antonovski and Kakhovski bridges," another bridge, she told Ukrainian television.
The Antonovski Bridge, in the suburbs of Kherson, is strategic and vital for supplies because it is the only one connecting the city to the southern bank of the Dnieper and the rest of the Kherson region. It had already been targeted and partially destroyed on July 27, forcing the Russian military to rethink its supply chains. In particular, mobile pontoons would have been installed.
From eastern to southern Ukraine, military operations continued over the weekend. Russian attacks have killed at least five civilians in the eastern region of Donetsk, said its governor Pavlo Kirilenko. In this same province, near Virnopillia, "the occupiers attempted to carry out an assault", but were "repelled"; they also "retreat" near Sloviansk, Bakhmout, Avdiïvka and several other localities, announced Sunday evening the staff of the Ukrainian army.
The Russians also "bombarded two districts of Kharkiv", in the northeast, destroying "industrial infrastructure" there, as well as, not far from there, the areas of Bogodukhiv, Izium and Chugouïv, reported Oleg Sinegoubov, governor of the Kharkiv region. "Two people were hospitalized, a 16-year-old boy and an 83-year-old man. Both were landmine victims," he said. Two others were injured in strikes on Marganets in central Ukraine, said Valentin Reznitchenko, governor of Dnipro province. "We still have a very difficult situation in the Donbass (east), in the Kharkiv region and in the south, where the occupiers are trying to concentrate their forces," admitted Volodymyr Zelensky.
Amnesty International said on Sunday it regretted the "anger" sparked by an NGO report accusing the Ukrainian armed forces of endangering civilians, again maintaining its conclusions which angered kyiv. The publication of the report had also led to the resignation of the head of Amnesty International in Ukraine, Oksana Pokaltchouk, accusing the report published on August 4 of having unwittingly served "Russian propaganda". Volodymyr Zelensky had gone so far as to accuse the NGO of "attempting to grant amnesty to the Russian terrorist state", by putting "the victim and the aggressor in a certain way on an equal footing".
"Amnesty International deeply regrets the dismay and anger that our press release on combat tactics in the Ukrainian army has caused," the NGO said on Sunday. She recalls that her priority "in this conflict as in any other, is to ensure that civilians are protected". "That was our sole purpose when we released this latest research report," Amnesty continues, "while we fully stand by our findings, we regret the pain caused."
In its report after a four-month investigation, Amnesty accused the Ukrainian military of establishing military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas, a tactic it said violates the international humanitarian law. "Russia is solely responsible for the violations it has committed against Ukrainian civilians," Amnesty insists, however.
