The nuclear power plant on the front line of the war in Ukraine has lost external power again, fuelling fears of a radiation disaster as fighting continues in the area.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, had its last remaining main external power line cut off, although a reserve line continued supplying electricity to the grid, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday.
Only one of the station’s six reactors remained in operation, the agency said in a statement.
The plant, seized by Russian troops shortly after their February 24 invasion, has become a focal point of the conflict, with each side blaming the other for nearby shelling.
Ukraine and the West accuse Russia of storing heavy weapons at the site to discourage Ukraine from firing on it. Russia, which denies the presence of any such weapons there, has resisted international calls to relocate troops and demilitarise the area.
Russia’s defence ministry on Saturday accused Ukrainian forces of mounting a failed attempt to capture the plant. Turkey has offered to facilitate the situation.
Constant artillery fire prompted fears of a radiation disaster that the International Red Cross has said would cause a major humanitarian catastrophe.
Shelling continued nearby in Kherson on Sunday as Ukrainian forces attempt to retake the city occupied by Russian troops for months. Ukraine forces destroyed a recreation facility where Russian soldiers were staying, local residents said.
Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo, reporting from the capital Kyiv, said Kherson is a critical city in the battle for Ukraine, highlighting that a major counteroffensive was launched last week.
“The Ukrainians feel now they have to retake Kherson and what they are trying to do is basically trap the tens of thousands of Russian soldiers there,” he said.
On this counteroffensive, they are not storming directly into the city. They are trying to encircle the Russians slowly and methodically and cut off supply lines, and as one military analyst said, ‘pinch the Russians off’.”
Taras Berezovets, a special forces officer from the Ukraine military, said the counterattack to retake the city will likely take months as equipment and logistics are readied.
“I would characterise our offensive as smooth but effective. Our armed forces are thinking first about the lives of our servicemen and the lives of our civilians. We’re not going to go any further if there is a serious risk,” Berezovets told Al Jazeera.
“Ukrainian forces are not only going to liberate the Kherson region but all occupied territories. It doesn’t matter how long it will take. The Russian soldiers are demoralised, they don’t know what they’re doing on Ukrainian soil.”
The counteroffensive in southern Ukraine aims to degrade Russian forces and logistics, rather than immediately recapturing swathes of territory, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych told the Wall Street Journal.
The goal is the “systemic grinding of Putin’s army and that Ukrainian troops are slowly and systematically uncovering and destroying Russia’s operational logistical supply system with artillery and precision weapon strikes”, he said
‘A battlefield’
According to the daily update by the Ukrainian military, more than 24 air strikes by the Russian army were registered within 24 hours. Both military and civilian sites were hit, the report said, without giving further details.
“Due to the lack of high-precision weapons, the enemy began to use outdated S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles more often,” it said, adding more than 500 such missiles have been fired at targets in Ukraine during the course of the war.
People living alongside the Dnieper River near the besieged nuclear plant have been spending nights in tents or in cars, scared of the intensive shelling near their homes.
- Nikopol, about 10km (six miles) downstream from the Zaporizhzhia plant, has been under attack for ne
