Russian forces shelled Europe’s biggest nuclear power station during an attack on the northeastern city on Energodar and its Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant with a fire breaking out although the Ukrainian authorities say that the blaze has now been extinguished.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba warned: “If it blows up, it’ll be 10 times larger than Chernobyl”
The Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration has since announced that the power plant had been taken by Russian forces.
In a special session today, the Duma unanimously passed a law making ‘discrediting’ the Russian military punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Calling for sanctions against Russia is also to be banned.
Yesterday a member of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia says the parties have reached a tentative agreement to organize safe corridors for civilians to evacuate and for humanitarian supplies to be delivered.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who took part in Thursday’s talks in Belarus near the Polish border, said that Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary understanding that cease-fires will be observed in areas where the safe corridors are established.
However according to Podolyak, Ukraine is dissatisfied with the outcome of the second round of talks with Russia. The sides will meet for the third round “probably in the nearest time.”
Earlier Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to sit down for talks while urging the West to offer a stronger military assistance to Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion.
In a sarcastic reference to a long table Putin used for his recent meetings with foreign leaders and Russian officials, Zelenskyy said: “Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at 30 meters,” adding, “I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?”
Ukraine’s state emergencies agency says that at least 22 civilians have been killed in a Russian strike on a residential area in the city of Chernihiv, a city of 280,000 in Ukraine’s north.
A French official says French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken for 90 minutes by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who told Macron that military operations in Ukraine are “going according to plan.”
The official at the French Elysee presidential palace said Putin told Macron the conflict would continue “until the end” unless negotiations meet his terms.
Putin said negotiations must center on the “neutralization and disarmament of Ukraine,” according to the French official. Putin reportedly said he would attain that goal by military means, if not by political and diplomatic means.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has sanctioned Uzbekistan-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose commercial links to Everton football club have been suspended, and former Russian deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov
