UN nuclear team to inspect embattled plant

The latest

reporters in Zaporizhzhia.

Russianinstalled officials have suggested that the team from the UN nuclear watchdog would have only a day to inspect the plant, while the mission is preparing for longer.

Fighting was reported near the plant and further afield yesterday, with both sides claiming battlefield successes amid a new Ukrainian push to recapture territory in the south.

‘‘It is a very slow process, because we value people,’’ said Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, referring to the Ukrainian offensive.

‘‘There will be no quick success.’’

Russia captured large tracts of southern Ukraine close to the Black Sea coast in the early weeks of the over sixmonthold war, including in the Kherson region, north of the Russianannexed Crimean Peninsula.

Elsewhere, Ukraine repelled Russian attacks in the direction of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, towns north of the Russianoccupied city of Donetsk, its armed forces’ general staff said.

ProRussian troops have focused on Bakhmut in their push to extend control over the Donbas region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland in its east, the general staff added yesterday.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield details.

The conflict has also fuelled worries of a Chernobylstyle radiation disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which was captured by Russia in March but is still manned by Ukrainian staff.

Zaporizhzhia city authorities have been conducting emergency drills to prepare for a radiation leak.

A video released by the regional state administration yesterday shows workers in protective suits and breathing masks using radiation detecting devices on cars and people.

The IAEA mission to the plant was a step towards ‘‘deoccupying and demilitarising’’ the site, Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, said yesterday, though pointing out that his government would not be able to follow up on any recommendations.

‘‘If they draw up a report about violations and give it to Ukraine to fix them, we won’t be able to do that as long as the Russian military is there,’’ Galushchenko added.

But Russia has said it has no intention of withdrawing its forces for now. — Reuters

Ukrainian forces had had successes in three areas of the Russianoccupied region of Kherson, a Ukrainian regional official said, after Kyiv launched a fresh push this week to retake territory in its south. Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south had failed, their forces suffering heavy losses.

The Kyiv district of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s secondlargest city that has been frequently shelled since the beginning of the invasion, came under overnight fire, the mayor said. A city enterprise was targeted and a fire broke out. Germany’s chief of defence warned the West not to underestimate

Russia’s military strength, saying it could open up a second front. EU foreign ministers decided to make it more expensive and lengthier for Russians to get visas to travel to the bloc, but stopped short of agreeing to a visa ban that Ukraine had called for. Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospect of recession and energy rationing in some of the region’s richest countries. G7 finance chiefs would discuss the US administration’s proposed price cap on Russian oil when they met tomorrow, the White House said. — Reuters