Tag: list

Here are the key events from Friday, August 19.

Diplomacy

• The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has expressed grave concern at the situation around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, warning any potential damage to the plant would be “suicide”.

• Guterres called for the demilitarisation of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, but his proposal was rejected by the Russian foreign ministry.

• The UN secretary-general’s comments came after he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Lviv amid growing fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
• Erdogan renewed his offer to act as a mediator. Turkey, along with the UN, has brokered a deal to allow the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports to address the global food crisis.
• The UN wants to step up grain exports from Ukraine before winter, Guterres said.

• The United States is preparing about $800m of additional military aid for Ukraine and could announce it as soon as Friday, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Fighting

• Russia is keeping up a steady bombardment of the northeastern Kharkiv front to tie down Ukrainian forces and prevent them from being used for counterattacks in other regions, Britain’s defence ministry said on Friday.
• Seventeen people were killed and 42 wounded in two separate Russian attacks on Kharkiv, the regional governor said.
• At least four explosions hit an area near the Russian Belbek military airport north of Sevastopol in annexed Crimea, three local sources said, but a pro-Moscow official said no damage had been done.
• The inhabitants of two villages in southern Russia near the Ukrainian border were evacuated after a nearby ammunition storage depot caught fire, but no one was hurt, an official said.

Here are the key events from Tuesday, August 16.

Fighting

• Vladimir Rogov, the Russia-installed official in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, said that in the space of two hours, some 25 heavy artillery strikes from M777 howitzers had landed near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and residential areas. The Russian-appointed administration blamed Ukrainian forces.

• Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the administration of the Ukrainian-held Nikopol district, which lies across the river from Enerhodar, said the shelling was carried out by the Russians who were trying to make it look as if Ukraine was attacking the city. Al Jazeera could not verify the rival claims.

Diplomacy

• Russia said it would do “everything necessary” to allow specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the plant, but warned a mission through Kyiv would be too dangerous. United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN could provide logistics and security support if Russia and Ukraine agree.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu about conditions for safe operations at Zaporizhzhia, the UN and Russia said.

• Russia’s defence ministry said British reconnaissance aircraft violated the Russian air border near Cape Svyatoy Nos between the Barents Sea and the White Sea, and a Russian fighter jet forced it out.

• Russia is ready to sell advanced weapons to allies globally and cooperate in developing military technology, Putin said, adding its latest arms are far superior to those of rival nations.

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 172nd day, we take a look at the main developments.

Here are the key events from Sunday, August 14.

Fighting

• Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the latest round of shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, which is in Russia’s control and has come under fire repeatedly in the past week.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said any Russian soldier who shoots at the plant or uses it as cover would become a “special target”, repeating accusations that Moscow was using the power station as nuclear “blackmail”.
• Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of “hitting the part of the nuclear power plant where the energy that powers the south of Ukraine is generated”.
• Pro-Moscow officials in the occupied area have blamed the shelling on Ukrainian forces, with Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Moscow-installed administration, saying the Zaporizhzhia plant, and the town where it is located, Energodar, “are again under fire by Zelenskyy’s militants”.
• Western powers have expressed increasing concern over the plant since Russian forces took control of the facility in early March. They have called on Moscow to withdraw its troops from the plant, which is still run by Ukrainian technicians.
• The United Kingdom’s military intelligence said Russia’s priority in the last week has likely been to “reorient units to reinforce southern Ukraine” amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Diplomacy

• The head of the North American department at the Russian foreign ministry has said any possible seizure of Russian assets by the US will completely destroy Moscow’s bilateral relations with Washington, according to the TASS news agency. The US has seized billions of dollars of assets of Russians under sanctions since the invasion began.
• Russia has also told the US that diplomatic ties would be badly damaged and could even be broken off if Washington declares Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism”, TASS cited a top foreign ministry official as saying. Zelenskyy and several US legislators have called for Russia to be designated as such.

Economy

• Two more ships left from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Saturday, Turkey’s defence ministry said, bringing the total number of ships to depart the country under a United Nations-brokered deal to 16.
• A UN-chartered ship, MV Brave Commander, is set to become the first humanitarian food shipment for Africa to depart from Ukraine since the Russian invasion. A UN official has said the ship will travel in the coming days from the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi to Ethiopia along the Black Sea corridor brokered by the UN and Turkey. It is set to carry 23,0000 tonnes of wheat.
• Zelenskyy’s chief economic adviser has said securing a new $5bn loan from the IMF would help assure Ukraine’s other creditors that its macroeconomic situation was under control.
• The US has expressed concern that an Indian ship earlier this year used a high-seas transfer to export fuel to New York made from Russian crude, a top Indian central banker said. US sanctions on Russia prohibit imports to the US of Russian-origin energy products, including crude oil, refined fuels, distillates, coal and gas.
• Hungary said Russia has begun to deliver additional gas to the country following a July visit to Moscow by its foreign minister. Hungary has resisted European Union’s efforts to reduce Russian gas consumption.

Here are the key events on Thursday, August 11.

Fighting

• Ukraine accused Russia of firing rockets from the captured Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, killing at least 13 people and wounding 10, in the knowledge it would be risky for Ukraine to return fire.
• Russia launched 80 Grad rockets at the town of Marhanets across the Dnieper river from the nuclear plant on Tuesday, Valentyn Reznychenko, the governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region said, adding that more than 20 buildings were damaged.
• Two US newspapers cited unnamed Ukrainian officials as saying the country’s special forces had carried out an attack on Tuesday on an airbase on the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, destroying military aircraft.
• Russian attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut killed at least six people and wounded three others, the regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said.

Diplomacy

• The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) economic powers have called on Moscow to immediately return Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to full Ukrainian control amid growing fears of a potential disaster.
• China has accused the United States of being the “main instigator” of the Ukraine crisis, saying Washington’s “ultimate goal is to exhaust and crush Russia”.
• Russian authorities raided the home of a former state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova and detained her as part of a criminal investigation for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian armed forces, her lawyer said on social media.
• The Russian independent news outlet Novaya Gazeta said it had been fined 350,000 Russian roubles ($5,700) for “abusing media freedom”.

Economy

• Ukraine’s overseas creditors backed its request for a two-year freeze on payments on almost $20bn in international bonds, a move that will allow it to avoid a debt default.
• Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the move will save the country almost $6bn, helping stabilise its economy and strengthen its army.
• The second commercial ship to arrive in a Ukrainian port since the start of Russia’s invasion has docked in the port of Chornomorsk and is ready to load grain, Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov said.
• Russians are snapping up Western fashion and furniture this week as H&M and IKEA sell off the last of their inventory in Russia, moving forward with their exit from the country after it sent troops into Ukraine.