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Kyiv and Moscow exchanged blame on Saturday for fresh shelling around the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, which is in Russia’s control and has come under fire repeatedly in the past week. Read FRANCE 24’s coverage of the day’s events as they unfold. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
05:52am: Ukraine, Russia accuse each other of nuclear plant strikes
Kyiv and Moscow exchanged blame on Saturday for fresh shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear facility, which is in Russia’s control and has come under fire repeatedly in the past week.
The Zaporizhzhia plant in southeastern Ukraine has been occupied by Russian forces since March, and Kyiv has accused Moscow of basing hundreds of soldiers and storing arms there.
During his televised address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of nuclear “blackmail” and using the plant to “intimidate people in an extremely cynical way.”
“They arrange constant provocations with shelling of the territory of the nuclear power plant and try to bring their additional forces in this direction to blackmail our state and the entire free world even more,” Zelensky said.
He added that Russian forces were “hiding” behind the plant to stage bombings on the Ukrainian-controlled towns of Nikopol and Marganets.
9:21pm: Ukraine reports ‘fierce fighting’ in village Russia claims to control
Ukraine’s military command said on Saturday that “fierce fighting” continued in Pisky, an eastern village which Russia had earlier in the day said it had full control over.
“The occupiers are trying to break through the defense of our troops in the directions of Oleksandropol, Krasnohorivka, Avdiivka, Maryinka, and Pisky,” Ukraine’s general staff said in its nightly briefing note on Facebook.
“Fierce fighting continues,” it added.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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