Ukraine assured Thursday that its army was advancing on the front despite “powerful resistance” from the Russians, especially in the south, and the continuation of the bombing campaign on Ukrainian cities.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, arrived at the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russia, to determine in particular whether this gigantic installation was endangered by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnieper River, the water from which is used to cool the six reactors.
This displacement in this occupied zone of the south, intervenes in full Ukrainian counter-offensive to free the southern and eastern territories under Russian control.
In the south, Deputy Defense Minister Ganna Maliar claimed “a gradual but certain advance” by Ukrainian soldiers, despite “powerful resistance” from Russian troops.
“The Ukrainian armed forces are faced with the total mining of the fields”, she noted, also referring to “the use of explosive drones” and “intense bombardments”.
In the east, Ukrainian forces have advanced “more than three kilometers” over the past ten days in the Bakhmout area, Ms.me Maliar in a press conference, stating that “the enemy is currently mobilizing additional reserves”.
100 km2
In total, the Ukrainian army has taken over “more than 100 square kilometers” in a week of fighting, said an official from the Ukrainian army general staff, Oleksiï Gromov, during the press conference.
According to him, the Ukrainians advanced about three kilometers deep near the locality of Mala Tokmatchka, in the Zaporizhia region and “up to seven kilometers” south of Velyka Novossilka, in the Donetsk region, a- he specified.
On the outskirts of Bakhmout, the Ukrainians continued their operation to try to squeeze the Russian forces inside this ruined city after nearly a year of fighting.
AFP journalists saw an artillery unit shelling Russian forces in Bakhmout in the Donetsk region on Thursday. Ukrainian soldiers said they were advancing slowly on the northern and southern flanks of the city.
Conversely, Russian President Vladimir Putin told him this week that the Ukrainian attacks were repelled one after the other and that the opponent’s losses were almost “catastrophic”.
Russia also continued its campaign of mainly night-time bombardments of Ukrainian urban centres.
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Krivyi Rig came under missile strikes for the second time in three days.
Three missiles hit “two industrial companies that have nothing to do with the army,” local military administration chief Oleksandre Vilkoul said on Telegram, reporting one injured.
The day before, 12 people were killed in the shelling of an apartment building and a warehouse.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, a fourth missile and 20 drones launched from the north and south were intercepted by air defenses across the country.
Nuclear risk?
For his part, the head of the IAEA arrived at the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant to establish whether this site, under Russian occupation, risks running out of water to cool it, following the destruction of a dam in the south which caused major flooding downstream and a risk of water shortages upstream.
Originally scheduled for Wednesday, Mr. Grossi’s visit was postponed to Thursday without explanation.
According to the official who was speaking in Kiev on Tuesday, there is no “immediate danger” for the plant, but the water level in the cooling basin worries him: “There is a serious risk, because the water that is there is limited”.
In another Russian-occupied territory, the Moscow-installed governor of the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014, said Russian forces shot down nine Ukrainian drones.
A drone, however, hit a village in the center of the peninsula, breaking the windows of several houses. No casualties have been identified.
Finally, the Russian electoral commission announced Thursday the holding of local “elections” on September 10 in the territories that Russia occupies in Ukraine and which it has claimed for annexation in September 2022.
These polls aim, according to the authority, to elect regional assemblies and municipal councils, even though the fighting is raging there and that Moscow controls only part of the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the east, Zaporizhia and Kherson in the south.