EU Condemns Russia’s Takeover of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant

 

The European Union’s top diplomat Saturday condemned “ in the strongest possible terms ” Russia’s attempt to add the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power factory and said Russia’s forces must completely withdraw from the factory and return control of it to Ukraine. 

 

 High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell called the seizure of the nuclear power factory “ illegal, and fairly null and void, ” and said a corroborated International Atomic Energy Agency( IAEA) “ presence at the point and its unchecked access to the factory are urgently demanded in the interest of the security of Europe as a whole. ” 

 Before the day, the IAEA reported that the Zaporizhzhia factory, the biggest in Europe, had lost its only external power source as a result of renewed Russian shelling and was forced to calculate on exigency diesel creators. 

 

 All six reactors at the factory are shut down, but they still bear electricity for cooling and other safety functions. The IAEA said factory masterminds have begun work to repair the damaged power line. 

The nuclear watchdog agency said the factory’s link to a 750- kilovolt line was cut at about 1 a.m. Saturday original time. It cited sanctioned information from Ukraine, as well as reports from IAEA experts at the point, which is held by Russian forces. 

 

 IAEA principal Rafael Grossi is traveling to Moscow to hold addresses in the coming days about establishing a protection zone around the nuclear factory. He was in Ukraine Friday and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding the situation. Transferring the factory to Russian power, Grossi said, is a violation of transnational law. 

Russia's Defense Ministry named General Sergei Surovikin on Saturday as the new overall commander of Kremlin forces engaged in Ukraine. It was the first sanctioned advertisement of a single overall commander for all Russian forces fighting in Ukraine since its February 24 irruption began. 

 

" By the decision of the defense minister of the Russian Federation, General of the Army Sergei Surovikin has been appointed commander of the common group of colors in the area of the special military operation," the statement said, using the Kremlin's term for the irruption of Ukraine. 

Surovikin had since 2017 led Russia's Aerospace Forces. In June, he was placed in charge of Russian forces in southern Ukraine. 

Bridge partly opens

Saturday actualized with an explosion that incompletely collapsed a ground over the Kerch Strait, an important road and rail link between Russia and Crimea and a vital force line for Russia’s war trouble against Ukraine. 

 

No bone has claimed responsibility for the blast that killed three people and shut down the ground. Russian transportation authorities said limited road and rail business had proceeded about 10 hours after the attack. 

Zelenskyy, in a videotaped address, laterally conceded the ground attack but not its cause. 

 

 “ moment wasn't a bad day and substantially sunny on our state's home, ” he said. “ Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm. ” 

Ukrainian officers have constantly hovered to strike the ground. 

Moscow stopped suddenly from assigning blame, but the speaker of Crimea’s Kremlin-backed indigenous congress indicted Ukraine while playing down the inflexibility of the damage. 

 “ Now they've commodity to be proud of over 23 times of their operation, they didn’t manage to make anything good of attention in Crimea, but they ’ve managed to damage the face of the Russian ground, ” Vladimir Konstantinov, speaker of the State Council of the Republic, wrote on Telegram. 

The sanctioned Twitter account of the Ukraine government twittered, “ Sick burn. ” 

 

 Mykhailo Podolyak, a Zelenskyy counsel, lauded the attack, twittering," Crimea, the ground, the morning. Everything illegal must be destroyed, everything stolen must be returned to Ukraine, everything enthralled by Russia must be expelled." 

Russian Foreign Ministry representative Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram, “ The Kyiv governance’s response to the destruction of mercenary structure highlights its terrorist nature. ” 

 

 The Ukrainian postal service blazoned it would issue prints commemorating the blast, saying in a statement that the images would draw on classic film bills to punctuate the ground's “ sacred significance ” to Moscow. The postal service preliminarily released a set of prints commemorating the sinking of the Moskva, a Russian flagship sport fisherman, by a Ukrainian strike in late May. 

Investigation ongoing

The blast, reportedly a truck lemon, passed indeed though all vehicles driving across it suffer automatic checks for snares by state-of-the-art control systems. That has drawn a sluice of critical commentary from Russian war bloggers. 

 

 The truck was possessed by an occupant of the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, Russia’s Investigative Committee said. It noted that investigators arrived at his home as part of the inquiry and are looking at the truck’s route and other details. 

The 19- kilometer ground across the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the ocean of Azov opened in 2018 and is the longest in Europe. The$3.6 billion design is a palpable symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea, and it has handed an essential link to the promontory, which Russia adjoined from Ukraine in 2014. 

 

 While Russia seized areas north of Crimea beforehand during the irruption and erected a land corridor to it along the ocean of Azov, Ukraine is pressing a counterattack to reclaim them. 

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.