KYIV | The conflict worsened on Friday in Ukraine with the attack by Russia on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and the continuation of bombardments in the cities, pushing the West to raise the tone vis-a-vis Moscow following this “threat to the world”.
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“We survived a night that could have ended history. The History of Ukraine. The History of Europe”: an explosion at the Zaporozhye power plant in southern Ukraine would have been the equivalent of “six Chernobyls”, alarmed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Friday, the ninth day of the invasion, the Russian army occupied the central Zaporozhye where strikes from its artillery, according to the Ukrainians, caused a fire – which Moscow denies being the cause.
At the start of the morning, the Ukrainian authorities indicated that the fire, which affected a laboratory and a training building, had been extinguished and that no radioactive leak had been detected. The information was confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“This is the first time that a military conflict has taken place in a country with a large nuclear program,” said Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA.
This represented “an immense threat for all of Europe and the world”, reacted Friday to the Security Council of the UN, meeting in emergency, the American ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Moscow has categorically denied attacking the site. This is a “lie”, affirmed the Russian ambassador to the Security Council, Vassili Nebenzia. In Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Defense implicated “groups of Ukrainian saboteurs, with the participation of mercenaries”.
But the foreign ministers of the G7 countries have already announced that they will “impose tough new sanctions in response to Russian aggression”. The European Union is also ready for this, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Although he insisted on the need to “end” this conflict, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that the Atlantic Alliance could not respond to the request for the creation of a no-fly zone. , to avoid being drawn into the conflict.
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Unverifiable balance sheet
North of Kyiv, fighting continued in Cherniguiv, where Ukraine accused Moscow of bombing a residential area and schools on Thursday, killing 47 according to a new report.
Attacks are increasingly violent and seemingly indiscriminate against residential areas, such as those in the town of Irpin, AFP journalists have found.
Thick plumes of black smoke blanketed swathes of the northwestern suburbs of Kiev, after a day of almost uninterrupted Russian bombardment.
The nearby town of Boutcha has become a graveyard for Russian armor that attempted to enter the capital last week.
Some 350 km east of Kyiv, the situation has also become “hell” in Okhtyrka, and it is “critical” in Sumy, according to the authorities. In Kharkiv, the shelling remained intense. The humanitarian situation in Mariupol is “terrible” after 40 hours of uninterrupted shelling, the city’s deputy mayor Sergei Orlov told the BBC.
The balance sheet is impossible to verify independently.
The Russian ambassador in Geneva (Switzerland), Gennady Guatilov, affirmed that there had been “2,870 victims on the Ukrainian side, 498 on the Russian side”, citing figures from the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Ukraine and Western observers say the Russian casualty toll is grossly understated, with Kiev citing more than 9,000 Russian troops.
For her part, during the debate before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Ukrainian ambassador Yevheniia Filipenko declared that “thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin assured that Russian forces were not bombing Kyiv and major Ukrainian cities, calling reports of the destruction carried out by Moscow a “gross propaganda fabrication”.
But on Friday morning, at the UN Human Rights Council, a resolution in favor of an international commission of inquiry into violations of human rights and humanitarian law in Ukraine was passed by an overwhelming majority.
The American organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) notably affirmed that in Kharkiv, Russian forces had used cluster munitions on February 28, the use of which could constitute a war crime.
For its part, the World Food Program (WFP) has warned of the imminence of a food crisis in the regions affected by the war in Ukraine.
In towns that fell under Russian control, footage showed civilians searching for food.
Third round
A third round of negotiations with Russia is looming for this weekend, said one of the Ukrainian negotiators, Mykhaïlo Podoliak.
But the dialogue is only possible if “all Russian demands” are accepted, warned Vladimir Putin, in particular a “neutral and non-nuclear” status for Ukraine and its “compulsory demilitarization”.
Meanwhile, a Pentagon official announced on Friday that “equipment in the amount of $240 million, including some of the most critical equipment like anti-armour equipment,” had been handed over to Ukrainian forces “in multiple locations.” .
facebook blocked
In Russia, the Kremlin has tightened its repression of all dissenting voices in the face of the conflict.
Since the beginning of the offensive on February 24, arrests, closures of the few remaining independent media and new repressive texts have been linked, while the Kremlin and the major Russian media present the conflict as “a special military operation”.
On Friday, the Russian authorities restricted access to the sites of several independent media: the local edition of the BBC, the German international radio and television Deutsche Welle, the independent site Meduza (based in Riga, Latvia), Radio Svoboda, Russian branch of RFE/RL, and Voice of America.
The Russian internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, has also blocked Facebook and restricted access to Twitter, according to the Ria Novosti and Interfax agencies.
Vladimir Putin has also signed a law providing for up to 15 years in prison for anyone publishing “false information”.
Mobilization
More than 1.2 million refugees have already fled Ukraine, according to the latest UN count, prompting strong mobilization, particularly in bordering countries.
The G7 countries called on Friday for the “rapid” establishment of humanitarian corridors in Ukraine to facilitate the evacuation of civilians and allow access for United Nations “aid organizations” and “medical personnel”.
But it was unclear whether these corridors, which Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed to organize during a second round of negotiations, were being put in place.
The stock markets, in several places from Asia to Europe, fell on Friday. Over the week, Paris, Frankfurt and Milan lost more than 10% each. The euro fell below the symbolic threshold of 1.10 dollars for one euro.
European natural gas has exceeded 200 euros per megawatt hour, a first. And the barrel of Brent from the North Sea closed on Friday at 118.11 dollars, a level it had not reached since August 2008.
The list of companies disengaging – at least temporarily – from Russia has grown even longer: the American computer giant Microsoft announced on Friday that it was suspending “new sales” of its products and services in this country and the world’s number 1 luxury LVMH the temporary closure of 124 stores.