The Russian army is accused of firing missiles into Ukraine from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, according to the Ukrainian nuclear energy operator. Russian forces are also “probably coming out of operational hiatus” decided eight days ago, assured the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Saturday July 16. Franceinfo takes stock of the assessment of the situation in Ukraine, on the 143rd day of the war.
The end of the Russian “operational pause”?
On Saturday, the ISW said the Russian military appeared to be emerging from its “operational pause” phase in eastern Ukraine. Moscow troops conducted “a series of ground assaults”, “still on a small scale” and “largely unsuccessful”northwest of Sloviansk, southeast of Siversk, along the Bakhmut-Lyssychansk highway, southeast of Bakhmut and southwest of the city of Donetsk, lists the Institute.
Russian offensives in the Donbass remain “reduced”supports the British Ministry of Defence, the fighting concentrating on Siversk and Bakhmout, “despite Russian claims to have entered the suburbs of Siversk” this week.
“Missile systems” at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
According to Ukrainian nuclear energy operator Energoatom, the Russian army has deployed missile launchers at the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which it has controlled since early March.
“The situation (at the center) is extremely tense and the tension is increasing day by day”said on Telegram Petro Kotin, the president of Energoatom. “The occupiers are bringing their machinery there, including missile systems with which they have already struck” the territory of Nikopol, on the other side of the Dnipro river, he assured. The governor of the Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko, in turn denounced “a deluge of fire in the morning” in Nikopol, which he said killed two people.
Death toll rises in Vinnytsia
Missile strikes on the center of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine killed 24, according to regional governor Serguiy Borzov. He said that 68 people continued to receive care, including four children.
Moscow claimed to have targeted a command meeting of Ukrainian forces in the city. A US defense official dismissed the Russian claims, and both the UN and European Union condemned the bombing.
At least 353 children dead since February
At least 353 Ukrainian children have died and 662 have been injured since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, according to a post by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office on Telegram. “These data are not definitive, as the census work is in progress in the areas where the fighting is ongoing, in the territories temporarily occupied and liberated”, specifies this source.