Russian troops breach safety rules at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, says Energoatom

Russian troops have violated safety rules at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which they occupied earlier in the war. According to state nuclear company Energoatom, Putin’s forces on Monday took passes from employees of the nuclear plant, which is located in Russian-occupied Enerhodar. None of the soldiers wore protective clothes and as they marched through the plant, they violated several nuclear safety rules.

Last week, the head of Zaporizhzhia’s pro-Russian military-civilian administration Yevgeny Balitsky, said that a  referendum on the region's accession to Russia will take place in early autumn this year. He said that all "organizational mechanisms" are being prepared for the process, according to TASS. Balitsky said that he has received a number of requests from labour forces, trade union organisations and activists to decide on the status of Zaporizhzhia at the earliest. He further underscored that the people want Zaporizhzhia to become a territorial identity within Russia.

Meanwhile, Russian troops have continued to strike cities and villages in Ukraine’s south and industrial east. On Tuesday, they fired missiles on Kramatorsk, leading to the death of one person and injuring ten other residents. Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, later confirmed the attack on a ten-story apartment saying that the hypersonic air-to-air R-37 missile was used. In a separate attack, Putin’s forces killed two individuals and partially obliterated a residential building in Sloviansk, State Emergency Services said.

Odesa targeted by cruise missiles

Meanwhile, on Odesa, Russian troops fired seven Kalibr cruise missiles overnight, injuring six people. Russian Ministry of Defence later justified the attack stating that  strikes on the village of Bilenke achieved a legitimate military goal and “destroyed depots of ammunition for weapons supplied by the United States and European countries.” But, Serhiy Bratchuk, the speaker of the Odesa regional government, nullified the claim, saying that Russia was attacking them as a part of its war tactic of intimidation.

“These strikes on peaceful people have one goal — to intimidate the population and the authorities and keep them in constant tension,” Bratchuk told Ukrainian television. The war between Russia and Ukraine has continued for five mnoth and seen hundreds of thousands of people die on both the sides. 

(Image: AP/Energoatom)