A missile hit a residential area in a southern city not far from a nuclear power plant on Saturday, injuring 12 civilians and raising fears of a nuclear accident during Ukraine’s war, Ukrainian officials said.
Vitaly Kim, the governor of the Mykolaiv region, said on the Telegram messaging app that four children were among the nine people injured in the attack, which destroyed several private homes and a five-story apartment building in Voznesensk, according to Reuters.
This city is located about 30 kilometers from the Podnokrainsk nuclear power plant, which is the second largest power plant in Ukraine.
The Mykolaiv District Prosecutor’s Office said 12 civilians were wounded. Previously, the number of injured was reported to be 9.
State-owned Energoatum, which operates all four of Ukraine’s nuclear power generators, described the attack on Voznesensk as “another act of Russian nuclear terrorism.”
Air raid warnings sounded several times in the Mykolaiv region on Saturday.
Energoatum said in a statement that the missile may have been specifically aimed at the Pvdnokrainsk nuclear power plant, which the Russian military tried to seize in early March.
Russia did not immediately respond to this accusation.
Reuters said it had not yet been able to verify the status of Voznesensk. No damage was reported to the Pevdenoukrainsk station.
Ukrainian officials have called on the United Nations and other international organizations to force Russian forces to leave another nuclear power plant that was seized shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press that Russian forces have stepped up their battle for control of a shrinking city in eastern Ukraine that they previously did not control, and continued to fire on towns and villages in the north and south of the country. Saturday.
Officials said Russian shelling collapsed balconies and shattered windows south of Mykolaiv, injuring nine civilians. The governor of the Black Sea region said: A residential building and private houses were heavily damaged.
A Ukrainian airstrike, reflecting the expansion of the front lines of the nearly six-month-old war in Ukraine, hit targets in the largest Russian-held city in the southern region of Zaporizhia, according to Ukrainian officials and others backed by the Kremlin, according to the Associated Press. The press.
The mayor of Melitopol, Ukraine, said that initial reports indicate specific damage to a Russian military base. The head of the Kremlin-backed government said the attack destroyed residential areas, while one civilian was wounded.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said fierce fighting was raging around the small town of Pakhmut, which would enable Russia to threaten the two largest remaining urban centers under Ukrainian control in the eastern Donbass region.
Bakhmut has long been the target of attacks east of Moscow, as the Russian military tries to complete a months-long campaign to capture the entire Donbass industrial region on the Russian border after pro-Moscow separatists declared independence for the two republics.
Clashes continued on Saturday near four towns on the border between Lugansk and Donetsk regions, which together make up the disputed area, a local Ukrainian official said.
Governor Pavlo Kirilenko wrote in a telegram on Saturday: Russian bombardment on Friday in Donetsk killed seven civilians, including four civilians in Bakhmut.
The capture of Bakhmut gives the Russians space to advance to the two main cities of the Ukrainian-controlled region, Kramatorsk and Slavyansk.
Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were targeted on Friday, along with the northern Kharkiv region, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city, the General Staff update said.
Neither Moscow nor Kyiv have commented on the airstrike on Russian-occupied Melitopol in southern Ukraine.
Early Saturday morning, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that pro-Russian forces fired Ukrainian shells near the city, as well as near a large power plant in the Kherson region, which the Russians captured early in the war.
The head of the Kremlin-appointed office in Melitopol confirmed on Saturday that the city is under Ukrainian fire.
Galina Danilchenko said in Telegram: “During the night, the Kyiv regime launched two attacks on beautiful Melitopol and residential areas of the city. Russian air defense systems launched missiles, but as a result of the bombardment, the houses of the city’s residents were shot. Two streets have been partially destroyed and damaged.”
The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Ferodov, said local Ukrainian authorities were gathering information about the attack.
Ukrainian officials have announced plans to launch a counter-offensive to retake occupied territories in the south of the country, while Russia has focused more on the east.
Local officials reported renewed Russian shelling overnight along a wide front, including the northern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy on the Russian border, as well as the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and Mykolaiv.
Source: Lebanon Debate
