1. Russian forces ‘shelling complete entrance line’ in Donetsk
Russian forces have shelled all of the entrance line within the Donetsk area in japanese Ukraine, in step with the regional governor.
The fiercest preventing was once close to the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, Pavlo Kyrylenko stated early on Friday, including that 5 civilians had been killed and two wounded in Ukrainian-controlled portions of Donetsk the day gone by.
He additionally stated that Russian troops had been additionally seeking to advance close to Lyman, which was once recaptured by means of Ukrainian forces in November, considered one of a variety of battlefield setbacks suffered by means of Russia prior to now few months.
In Bakhmut and different portions of the Donetsk area, Ukrainian forces countered with barrages from rocket launchers, a Reuters witness stated.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych stated in a video publish that the Russians had intensified their efforts in Donetsk and the neighbouring province of Luhansk.
“They are now in a very active phase of attempting to conduct offensive operations. We are advancing nowhere but, rather, defending, destroying the enemy’s infantry and equipment wherever it tries to advance,” he stated.
In a record early on Friday, the Ukrainian common workforce stated its forces had attacked Russian positions and troop meeting issues in a minimum of part a dozen cities within the south of Ukraine.
Russian losses amounted to about 240 wounded, with 3 ammunition depots and about more than a few army apparatus destroyed, it added. The battlefield stories may just now not be verified.
2. Russian military ‘beat up’ Zaporizhzhia staff, Ukraine claims
Ukraine accused Russia on Friday of detaining two staff of the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant within the south after “violently beating” them on Thursday.
“The Russian army broke into the premises where the social programmes department of the plant is located and, in the presence of other employees, violently beat the head of the department, Oleksiy Troubenkov, and his deputy, Yuriy Androsov,” nuclear operator Energoatom stated in a observation.
Afterwards, the Russians “took them out and led them in an unknown direction”, Energoatom stated, It added that the plant’s nuclear protection officer, Konstantin Beiner, was once additionally “thrown into the basement” however was once now not being held by means of Russian forces.
The Ukrainian nuclear operator accused Moscow’s infantrymen, who’ve occupied the web page since early March, of “going on the rampage and turning into real policemen and jailers”, and of “intensifying the repression” of staff.
Kyiv has up to now accused Moscow of mistreating Ukrainian workforce at Europe’s biggest nuclear energy plant. At the top of September, its director common was once arrested by means of Russian forces, simplest to be launched a couple of days later.
3. Russia ‘installs more than one rocket launchers’ at Zaporizhzhia
Russian forces have put in more than one rocket launchers at Ukraine’s shut-down Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, Ukrainian officers claimed on Thursday.
It has raised fears Europe’s biggest atomic energy station may well be used as a base to fireplace on Ukrainian territory and heighten radiation risks.
Ukraine’s nuclear corporate Energoatom stated in a observation that Russian forces occupying the plant have positioned a number of Grad more than one rocket launchers close to considered one of its six nuclear reactors. It stated the offensive programs are positioned at new secretly-built “protective structures”, “violating all conditions for nuclear and radiation safety.”
The claim could not be independently verified.
The Soviet-built multiple rocket launchers are capable of firing rockets at ranges of up to 40 kilometres, and Energoatom said they could enable Russian forces to hit the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, where each side blames the other for almost daily shelling in the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets. The plant is in a southern Ukrainian region the Kremlin has illegally annexed.
The Zaporizhzhia station has been under Russian control since the war’s early days. Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling the plant and risking a radiation release.
Although the risk of a nuclear meltdown is greatly reduced because all six reactors have been shut down, experts have said a dangerous radiation release is still possible.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has stationed inspectors at the plant and has been trying to persuade both sides in the conflict to agree to a demilitarised zone around it.
4. Risk of global conflict increased by ‘Western elites’, says Putin
Vladimir Putin on Friday said the West’s desire to maintain its dominance on the world stage was increasing the risks of conflict.
“The possible for struggle on this planet is rising and that is an instantaneous result of the makes an attempt by means of Western elites to keep their political, monetary, army and ideological dominance in any respect,” Putin said.
The Russian leader was speaking in a video message to a summit of defence ministers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and a group of ex-Soviet countries that was published by the Kremlin.
“They intentionally multiply chaos and worsen the global scenario,” Putin said.
He also accused the West of “exploiting” Ukraine and using its people as “cannon fodder” in a conflict against Russia.
Putin has repeatedly cast the war in Ukraine — which Moscow calls a “particular army operation” — as a conflict between Russia and the West, criticising those who have provided military and financial backing to Ukraine.
Kyiv, European countries and Washington say Moscow used the pretext of security concerns to launch a cynical war of aggression against its pro-European neighbour in an attempt to seize swathes of territory and topple President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
5. Russian opposition figure ‘guilty of spreading fake information’
Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin guilty was found guilty on Friday of spreading “pretend knowledge” about the army, Russian news agencies reported.
Prosecutors were seeking a nine-year sentence for the Moscow district councillor, with sentencing due later in the day.
Yashin was tried over a YouTube video released in April in which he discussed evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Bucha, near Kyiv, and cast doubt on the official Moscow version that such reports had been fabricated as a “provocation” against Russia.
Russia passed new legislation after invading Ukraine on February 24 that provides for jail terms of up to 15 years for disseminating false information about the military.
In his final statement to the court this week, Yashin appealed directly to President Putin, describing him as “the individual accountable for this slaughter” and asking him to “forestall this insanity”.
In June, Yashin was sentenced to 15 days in jail for “disobedience to the police” during an arrest, charges he dismissed as “fabricated”.
6. Zambian prisoner ‘pardoned by Russia to go and fight in Ukraine’
A Zambian prisoner was pardoned by Russia to go and fight in Ukraine where he was killed, Zambia’s government has claimed.
Moscow previously said that Lemekhani Nyirenda died on the battlefield in Ukraine in September, prompting Zambia to ask how he had ended up fighting in the war.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stanley Kakubo said his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov told him that Nyirenda was given an amnesty on August 23 in exchange for joining the military operation.
Nyirenda’s father says his son had been serving a nine-year jail sentence near Moscow for a drug offence when he was “conscripted” to battle.
Russian businessman and Putin best friend Yevgeny Prigozhin stated ultimate month the Zambian scholar have been preventing for his Wagner Private Military Group.
The Wagner team has introduced huge recruitment drives in Russian prisons, having a look to ship extra combatants into Ukraine to reinforce the faltering Russian invasion.
Kakubo stated Nyirenda’s stays had arrived in Moscow on Friday and had been anticipated in Zambia on Sunday.
