Volodymyr Zelenskiy, President of Ukraine, held a secret meeting with representatives of Ukraine’s defense and security sectors on Sunday.. “All the issues we’ve considered are important, but secret, I can’t go into detail,” he said. The meeting was attended by the heads of the armed forces, intelligence agencies, the defense ministry, the interior ministry, the Ukrainian security service and other defense forces.
Russian artillery fired on Ukrainian cities across the river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, local authorities said Sunday. The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Russian forces hit residential buildings in the main city of Zaporizhzhia and the city of Orikhiv further east. The Ukrainian army reported shelling of nine more villages in the area on the opposite side of the Dnieper River from the plant.
The UN nuclear watchdog is awaiting authorization from its officials to visit the plant “to help stabilize the nuclear safety and security situation there.” Energoatom head Petro Kotin told the Guardian that a visit from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could come before the end of the month, but Ukraine’s Energy Minister Lana Zerkal telling a local radio station that she was not convinced that it was Russia. good faith trader
The United States has said Russia does not want to acknowledge the serious radiological risk at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant., adding that this was the reason he blocked the final draft of a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. “The Russian Federation singlehandedly decided to block consensus on an outcome document at the conclusion of the Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). Russia did so to block language that only recognized the serious radiological risk in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” said a statement from the US State Department.
Concerns remain over the potential risk of radiation leaks at the plant. Ukrainian and Russian authorities issued fresh warnings about the risk of radioactive leaks, after the bombings which the sides blamed on each other. Ukraine’s state energy operator warned that there are “risks of hydrogen leaks and dust from radioactive substances”. Russia has ignored widespread international calls for the area to be demilitarized.
Ukrainians are likely to experience their coldest winter in decades, its gas chief has said, as the thermostats on its Sovietera central heating systems will turn on and off later. Yurii Vitrenko, the head of state gas company Naftogaz, said indoor temperatures would settle at 1718C, about four degrees below normal, and advised people to stock up on blankets and warm clothes for when the outside temperature drops below the winter average of 10ºC.
Germany is replenishing its gas stocks faster than expected despite drastic supply cuts to Russia and should reach an earlier October target, the government has said. Europe’s largest economy relies heavily on Russian gas and has been scrambling to shore up its reserves ahead of winter, crediting energysaving measures in recent weeks and massive purchases of gas from other suppliers
EU foreign ministers are expected to suspend visa facilitation for Russian tourists next week. The EU measure falls short of an outright ban, but would make obtaining travel documents significantly more complicated and expensive. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said a ban would lack the necessary support. “I don’t think cutting off the relationship with the Russian civilian population will help and I don’t think this idea has the necessary unanimity,” he told Austria’s ORF TV on Sunday.