A team of experts from the United Nations nuclear agency plans to stay at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) after gaining long-awaited access to the site on Thursday. “We are not going anywhere. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is now there, it’s in the plant and it’s not moving, it’s going to stay there,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi told reporters after returning to territory controlled by Ukraine He said a team of experts had stayed at the plant in southeastern Ukraine and would provide an unbiased, neutral and technically sound assessment of the situation.
The physical integrity of the Zaporizhzhia plant has been violated on several occasions, Rafael Grossi said. “It is obvious that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated several times,” he told reporters. “I am concerned, I am concerned and I will continue to be concerned about the plant until we have a more stable situation, that is more predictable.”
Russia’s ambassador to international institutions in Vienna told the RIA Novosti news agency on Friday that two inspectors would remain permanently at the plant.
Ukrainian officials accused Russia of manipulating and distorting information shared with the IAEA. Ukrainian state operator Energoatom said in a statement that Russian officials “are making every effort to prevent the IAEA mission from knowing the real state of affairs. They spread manipulative and false information about this visit.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism” on Friday. Russia has occupied Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since March. Pro-Russian authorities in Zaporizhzhia have accused Kyiv of trying to smuggle “spies” into the IAEA inspection team posing as journalists.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday: “We did everything we could to ensure that the IAEA had access to the ZNPP and I think that this mission may still have a role to play. Unfortunately, we have not heard the main from the IAEA, which is the call to Russia to demilitarize the station.”
The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, has reaffirmed the expansionist military goals of Russia’s invasion, saying: “Our task is to liberate all Russian cities that were founded by the Russian people during the ‘time of the Russian Empire. , and it was developed during the Soviet Union thanks to the help of our entire vast country. And this is not only the territories of Novorossiya [the Donbas], but also much wider. It won’t be any other way.”
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in its daily operations briefing that Russia’s main military objective at the moment remains “to establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk region and maintain the occupied areas of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk. Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.”
Russia’s foreign minister warned Moldova on Thursday that any action deemed to endanger the safety of Russian troops in the breakaway region of Transnistria would be considered an attack on Russia. Sergei Lavrov said: “Everyone should understand that any action that threatens the security of our troops [in Transnistria] would be considered under international law as an attack on Russia.”
Russia and China launched large-scale military exercises involving several allied nations on Thursday, in a sign of growing defense cooperation between Moscow and Beijing and a demonstration of Moscow’s military power. The Russian Defense Ministry said the Vostok 2022 (East 2022) exercise will run until Wednesday in Russia’s far east and the Sea of Japan and will involve more than 50,000 troops and 5,000 weapons units, including 140 planes and 60 warships.
U.S. federal agents on Thursday searched properties linked to a billionaire Russian oligarch in Manhattan, the Hamptons and an exclusive Miami island. FBI agents and Homeland Security Investigations personnel searched the properties, linked to Viktor Vekselberg, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and whose yacht was seized in April, it said NBC News.
Germany’s national intelligence agency is investigating allegations that two senior officials may have been spying for Russia, local media reported Thursday. Die Zeit, which first disclosed the case, said the officials under investigation were closely involved in the energy supply problems and held key positions.
Children returned Thursday to Ukrainian schools ruined by Russian occupation forces. Only fit-for-use schools that are located in areas that do not face a regular threat of bombing and that have enough students opting for face-to-face instruction will reopen. School administrators have prepared for the new school year by equipping basements as shelters and training teachers on what to do in the event of an attack.
A top Russian oil executive died Thursday after falling from a Moscow hospital window, months after his company criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ravil Maganov, chairman of Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, “fell from a window of the Central Clinical Hospital,” the Interfax news agency reported Thursday, citing a source. “He died from his injuries.” Maganov is the second senior Lukoil executive to die under mysterious circumstances in recent months.
Russian forces have been forcibly transferring Ukrainian civilians to Russia or areas of Ukraine under their control, according to Human Rights Watch. The forced transfers were “a serious violation of the laws of war that constitute war crimes and potential crimes against humanity,” he said.