The Russian military could be preparing to abandon the beleaguered Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant it has occupied since March, a top Ukraine energy official says.
Petro Kotin, president of Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator Energoatom, told the Ukraine TV show TSN that Russians could transfer control of the plant to the International Atomic Energy Agency, although he provided no timeline.
“It looks like they’re packing and stealing whatever they can find,” Kotin said.
The area around the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, has been battered by missile strikes for months and has been offline much of the time. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has repeatedly warned that a nuclear catastrophe could result if fighting in the region is not halted.
Russian attacks cut off essential power to all four of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants last week, forcing operators to conduct high-risk procedures.
“We must do everything we can to prevent nuclear accidents at any of these nuclear facilities, which would only add to the terrible suffering we already witnessing in Ukraine,” Grossi said.
Other developments
►Europe is united by a desire to keep Russia from posing a security threat, and a sovereign Ukraine is crucial, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said. Orban, who has balked at sanctions aimed at Russia, last week said he would support NATO bids for Sweden and Finland next year.
►Repair crews across Ukraine were scrambling to restore heat, electricity and water services that were severely damaged amid a punishing barrage of Russian missiles targeting infrastructure in recent days.
Russian leader admits military needs more doctors, equipment
A prominent Russian nationalist says the Russian military doesn’t have enough doctors. Leonid Slutsky, leader of the populist Liberal Democratic Party, issued a rare public admission of problems within the military while meeting with mothers of soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine.
“There are not enough doctors in the military units; everyone says this,” Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the lower house of parliament, said at the meeting in St. Petersburg. “I cannot say they do not exist at all, but they are practically not seen there.”
Slutsky stressed that the world is watching Russia, and “when we do not have socks, shorts, doctors, intelligence, communications, or simply care for our children, questions arise that will be very difficult to answer.”
Olga Suyetina said her son told her that the troops are underequipped.
“There are no gunsights, nothing, we have to buy them by crowdfunding,” she said. “They left Kharkiv, there was zero, there was not even polyethylene to cover the dugouts.”
Recently liberated Kherson battered by Russian shelling
Thousands of Kherson residents are fleeing the southern Ukrainian city whose liberation had been celebratedweeks earlier. Kherson Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said Sunday that Russian forces shelled the region 54 times over the past day, killing one person and wounding two, including a child. Yanushevych, on Telegram, said Russia “purposefully” targeted civilian infrastructure and civilians. Residential buildings, a garage, and an educational institution were hit in Kherson, while eight nearby villages came under fire, Yanushevychsays.
“Russians continue to use terror tactics,” the governor said.
Putin meets with military moms ahead of Russian Mother’s Day
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with a group of mothers whose children are serving in the Russian military in Ukraine or have already been killed in action. Putin, adressing the mothers two days before Russian Mother’s Day, said he frequently speaks with troops on the front lines and that morale is good. And he paid homage to soldiers whose lives were lost.
“I can’t bring myself to telling you some formal standard things related to the expression of condolences,” he said in addressing mothers of those who died. “But I want you to know that I personally, and the entire leadership of the country, we share your pain. We understand that nothing can replace the loss of a son, the loss of a child.”