KYIV, Aug 9 ― Ukraine reported intense Russian shelling across the frontlines today as both sides traded blame for the weekend strike on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex which triggered international concern about a potential atomic disaster.
“The situation is very interesting. Ukraine's forces are moving very successfully. Attempts by Russia to regain lost ground were not successful. Ukraine may end up encircling them,” he said. Russia's invading forces seized the southern Ukrainian region containing Zaporizhzhia in March, when the site was struck without damage to its reactors. The area, including the city of Kherson, is now the target of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.
Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine's state nuclear power company Energoatom, said 500 Russian soldiers and 50 pieces of heavy machinery, including tanks, trucks and armoured infantry vehicles were at the site. In an evening video shared online, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for new Western sanctions on Russia's nuclear industry “for creating the threat of a nuclear disaster.”
Skoch, a member of the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, was initially sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2018 for alleged ties to Russian organised criminal groups. He was hit with further sanctions in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.