Russia attacks hard in east
KYIV: Ukrainian forces yesterday reported heavy Russian shelling and attempts to advance on several towns in the eastern region of Donetsk that has become a key focus of the near sixmonth war, but said they had repelled many of the attacks.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces also reported Russian shelling of more than a dozen towns on the southern front — particularly the Kherson region, mainly controlled by Russian forces, but where Ukrainian troops are steadily capturing territory.
Much attention has been focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine amid fears of a catastrophe over renewed shelling in recent days that Russia and Ukraine blame on each other.
UN Secretarygeneral Antonio Guterres has called for the establishment of a demilitarised zone and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian soldiers who shoot at
Europe’s largest nuclear power station or use it as a base to shoot from that they will become a ‘‘special target’’ of Ukrainian forces.
The Zaporizhzhia plant dominates the south bank of a vast reservoir on the Dnipro River. Ukrainian forces controlling the towns and cities on the opposite bank have come under intense bombardment from the Russianheld side.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has warned of a nuclear disaster unless fighting stops. Nuclear experts fear fighting might damage the plant’s spent fuel pools or reactors.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine had many times proposed different formats to the Russian leadership for peace talks, without progress.
‘‘So we have to defend ourselves, we have to answer every form of terror, every instance of shelling . . . which does not let up for a single day,’’ he said in video remarks yesterday. — Reuters