The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces also reported Russian shelling of more than a dozen cities on the southern front – particularly the Kherson region, which is mostly held by Russian forces but where Ukrainian troops are steadily regaining ground. Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern military command, said Monday that the situation was complicated but under control. “The enemy does not dare to advance by land, but fires the lands in the rear with artillery and rockets,” he told a press conference. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Asked about Ukraine’s shelling of the Antonivskyi bridge in the Kherson region on Sunday, she said Ukrainian forces continued to fire on routes used by the Russians for supplies. “Last week, we destroyed more than 10 warehouses. The damage we caused makes it impossible to move heavy equipment. There are recorded events that after we inflicted defeats on command posts, their command staff moved to the left bank (of the Dnipro River), he said. Much attention has focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine amid fears of a disaster due to renewed bombing in recent days that Russia and Ukraine blame each other for. “The Russians believe they can force the world to comply with their terms by bombing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” tweeted Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff. “That won’t happen. Instead, our military will punish them by hitting hard with precision on pain points.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for a demilitarized zone around Zaporizhia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian soldiers who shoot at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant or use it as a base to shoot from will become “experts”. target” of Ukrainian forces. The Zaporizhzhia plant dominates the southern bank of a huge reservoir on the Dnipro River. Ukrainian forces controlling the towns and cities on the opposite bank have come under heavy shelling from the Russian side. read more The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is seeking access to the plant, has warned of nuclear destruction unless the fighting stops. Nuclear experts fear the fighting could damage the plant’s spent fuel tanks or reactors. A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday that it would do everything it could to allow IAEA experts to visit the plant. read more “In close cooperation with the organization and its leadership, we will do everything necessary for IAEA experts to be on the station and give a true assessment of the destructive actions of the Ukrainian side,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
COMPETITIONS IN EAST, SOUTH
A Ukrainian soldier gestures at a tank as it is towed by a military truck near Bakhmut as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Nacho Doce read more Ukraine, where parliament on Monday extended martial law for another three months, has said for weeks it is planning a counteroffensive to retake Zaporizhia and neighboring Kherson province, the largest swath of territory seized by Russia since its invasion on February 24 and still holds. In the Russian-held region of Luhansk, in the area below an abandoned, charred apartment building, Lilia Ai-Talatini, 48, watched as her mother’s body was exhumed from a makeshift grave to be taken to a cemetery for a proper burial . Ai-Talatini told Reuters how it took her 10 days to reach her parents’ apartment, which was on the Russian side of the town of Rubizhne, during heavy fighting there in March. “Her mother was already dying … her hands were blue, her skin was pale, there were circles under her eyes,” he said. “The next day the mother died.” An official from the Luhansk People’s Republic, a state created by pro-Moscow separatist forces, said a team had been working in Rubizhne for 10 days and exhumed 104 sets of remains. “It’s clear that shrapnel wounds predominate, but there are also bullet wounds,” said Anna Soroka, estimating there were 500 unofficial graves in the city. Reuters could not independently verify accounts on the battlefield. Russia calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation” to demilitarize its smaller neighbor and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and Western backers accuse Moscow of waging an imperialist-style war of conquest. The conflict has pushed Moscow-Washington relations to a low point, with Russia warning it could sever them. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow is ready to provide modern weapons to its allies. He used a speech at an arms exhibition near Moscow to boast about Russia’s advanced weapons capabilities. “(We are) ready to offer our allies the most modern types of weapons, from small arms to armored vehicles and artillery to air forces and unmanned aerial vehicles,” Putin said at the opening ceremony of the “Army-2022” forum. “Almost all have been used more than once in actual combat operations.” read more But Putin’s military performed worse than expected in Ukraine. Having been defeated by Ukraine’s two largest cities and making slow progress, at heavy cost, in the east of the country, the war has so far not proved a convincing showcase for Russia’s arms industry. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kyiv, Yoruk Isik and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Andrea Shalal in Yuzhne, Maya Gebeily in Beirut and Jonathan Saul in London and Reuters offices. Written by Lincoln Feast and Nick Macfie. Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Simon Cameron-Moore and Mark Heinrich Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
