People wait in line as humanitarian aid is distributed in the recaptured town of Lyman, Ukraine, Wednesday, October 5, 2022.
Leo Correa / AP
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Leo Correa / AP
People wait in line as humanitarian aid is distributed in the recaptured town of Lyman, Ukraine, Wednesday, October 5, 2022.
Leo Correa / AP
KYIV – Seven Russian rockets crashed into residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia before dawn on Thursday, killing two people and stranding at least five in the city near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. governor of the mostly Russian-occupied region said.
The airstrikes came just hours after Ukraine’s president announced that the Ukrainian army had recaptured three more villages in one of the regions illegally annexed by Russia.
Governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel that many people were rescued from multi-storey buildings, including a 3-year-old girl who was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed on Wednesday, in violation of international law and home to a nuclear plant occupied by Russia. The city of the same name remains under Ukrainian control.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog is expected to visit Kyiv this week to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia facility after Putin signed a decree on Wednesday declaring that Russia would take over the plant. 6 reactors. Ukraine’s foreign ministry called it a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void”. The state’s nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to speak with Ukrainian officials about Russia’s move. He will also discuss efforts to set up a safe guard zone around the facility, which was damaged in the skirmish, and witness staff including its director being beaten by the military. Russian kidnap.
Grossi will travel to Moscow for talks with Russian officials after a stop in Kyiv.
Meanwhile, leaders from more than 40 countries will meet in Prague on Thursday to launch a “European Political Community” to promote security and prosperity across the continent, a day after The Kremlin is open to further land grabs in Ukraine.
Speaking on a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “certain territories will be withdrawn and we will continue to consult with residents who wish to wanted to welcome Russia.”
Peskov did not specify what additional Ukrainian territories Moscow is eyeing, and he would not say whether the Kremlin plans to hold additional “referendums” in Ukraine that the Ukrainian government and the West have already announced. rejection is illegal or not.
The exact borders of the areas Moscow claims are still unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory – including annexed areas – by any means that his army can’t afford. he uses, including nuclear weapons.
In his nightly video speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Ukrainian army had recaptured three more villages in the Kherson region. Novovoskrysenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka are all located northeast of Kherson.
Ukrainian forces are retaking the villages of Kherson in humiliating defeats on the battlefield to Russian forces that have tarnished the image of a powerful Russian military and increased tensions surrounding a war unplanned mobilization. They have also fueled war among Kremlin insiders and pushed Putin increasingly into a corner.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said the Ukrainian flag had been raised above seven villages in the Kherson region formerly occupied by Russians. The closest of the liberated villages to the city of Kherson was Davydiv Brid, about 100 km (60 mi) away.
The deputy head of Ukraine’s regional government, Yurii Sobolevskyi, said military hospitals were full of wounded Russian soldiers and Russian military medics lacked supplies. Once stabilized, the Russian troops will be sent to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
When Russian troops withdrew from Lyman’s city of Donetsk over the weekend, they retreated so quickly that they left behind the bodies of their comrades. Some were still lying next to the road leading into the city on Wednesday.
Lyman suffered heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who only gave his name, was among about 100 residents lined up for relief Wednesday.
“We want the war to end and the pharmacy and the shops and hospitals to start operating as before,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything. Everything is destroyed and looted, a complete disaster.”
In his nightly speech, a defiant Zelenskyy switched to speaking Russian to tell the Moscow leadership that they had lost the war they launched on February 24.
“You lost because even now, on the 224th day of all-out war, you have to explain to your society why all this is necessary.”
He said the Ukrainians know what they are fighting for.
“And more and more Russian citizens are realizing that they have to die simply because a person does not want to end the war,” Zelenskyy said.
