On Sunday evening several artillery shells allegedly fell in the town of Enerhodar, where the employees of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant live. As in the previous days, the Russian and Ukrainian sides blamed each other for the shelling. Videos from both sides showed that numerous cars were burning in residential areas. A few hours earlier, Russian troops had allegedly shot down an armed Ukrainian drone directly over one of the six reactors.
[Alle aktuellen Nachrichten zum russischen Angriff auf die Ukraine bekommen Sie mit der Tagesspiegel-App live auf ihr Handy. Hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen.]
Russian attacks were reported along the front line and from several regions in the Ukrainian hinterland on Sunday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discussed the next steps to counter the invasion with the military and security apparatus. He did not give details, but announced: “The occupiers will feel the consequences in the further actions of our defenders.” On Monday it was 187 days since Russia started the war against the neighboring country.
Drone allegedly falls on concrete protective cover around reactor
As a further step in the escalation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the Russian occupation administration reported an alleged Ukrainian attack with a drone. The aircraft was shot down and fell on the containment shell over a reactor. The explosive charge detonated without causing any damage. This information has not been independently verified. It was assumed that the drone was intended to hit a spent fuel storage facility.
Nine people were injured, two of them seriously, by the nightly shelling of the city of Enerhodar, said Vladimir Rogov, a member of the occupation administration, on Monday night. With such steps, Ukraine wants to prevent experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from visiting the nuclear power plant. The information could not be independently verified.
The escaped Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlow, spoke of a provocation: Russian troops had fired. He accused Moscow of “nuclear blackmail” because Russian troops entrenched themselves in the nuclear power plant.
Take care of possible nuclear accident
The international community fears a possible nuclear accident caused by the fighting at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Two reactors went into emergency shutdown last week because the power supply was intermittent. There are still no safety guarantees for the expected journey of the IAEA experts.
Zelenskyj: Every attack is followed by a response
No attack on Ukrainian cities will remain unanswered, said President Zelenskyj after the consultation with the military: “Zaporizhzhia, Orikhiv, Kharkiv, Donbass – they will get an answer for everyone.” According to the Presidential Office, the meeting was about the situation the front, the needs of the army and coordination with international partners.
According to the authorities, the Rivne region in northern Ukraine was attacked with Russian rockets on Sunday evening. Activists from neighboring Belarus linked the attack to several Russian warplanes taking off from airfields in Belarus. The ruler there, Alexander Lukashenko, made his country available to the Russian troops as a deployment area against Ukraine. Two rockets also hit the center of the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Sunday evening, as Mayor Ihor Terekhov announced. An administration building was destroyed.
Dozens of places along the more than 2,000-kilometer-long front line have been shelled by Russian tanks, tube and rocket artillery, the Ukrainian General Staff said. Russian assaults were repelled in several places in the Donbass.
Kremlin prepares ground for referendums on annexation
Russia continues to move towards annexation of the occupied territories in Ukraine through referendums. High-ranking Kremlin official Sergey Kiriyenko put out a figure that in the pro-Russian separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, 91 to 92 percent of the population were in favor of joining Russia. In the Cherson and Zaporizhia areas, which have been conquered since February, it is 75 to 77 percent. Kiriyenko was citing surveys in the region that allegedly showed these results.
More on the Ukraine war on Tagesspiegel Plus:
“The decision is pending,” said the deputy head of the President’s Office. President Vladimir Putin has always said that the decision lies with the people of the region and that Russia will respect their choice. The Russian and Ukrainian media have repeatedly speculated about referendums in the occupied territories in September. Russian online portal Medusa, which operates out of Latvia, reported, citing sources in the Kremlin, that support for joining was much lower.
Media reports: EU wants to make entry more difficult for Russians
According to a report in the Financial Times, the European Union is preparing to restrict entry options for Russian citizens because of the war in Ukraine. According to the newspaper, the EU foreign ministers want to discuss at an informal meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Prague whether an agreement on the simplified issuing of visas from 2007 will be suspended. The Baltic states and Poland in particular are pushing for an entry ban. Germany and Austria reject this.
The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell considered an entry ban to the EU to be “not a good suggestion”. On the Austrian television channel ORF, he warned against completely cutting off contact with the Russian civilian population.
That will be important on Monday: Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will visit the Czech Republic and give a keynote speech on European policy at Charles University in Prague. Scholz had announced a turning point because of the Russian war of aggression. However, Germany has been criticized for sticking too closely to Russia in the past and now helping Ukraine too little. Scholz’s topics include energy policy, possible entry bans for Russian tourists and arms deliveries to Ukraine. (dpa)
