Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed that a team of independent inspectors can make a stopover at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, nuclear plant, the French presidency announced Friday.
The obvious solution to a dispute over whether inspectors were traveling to the plant in Ukraine or Russia came when a senior U. S. defense official said Ukrainian forces had halted the Russian advance.
“You see a total and general lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity.
According to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office, Putin had “reconsidered the request” of the International Atomic Energy Agency for the site across Russia, after the Russian leader himself warned that fighting there could lead to a “catastrophe. “
He said Putin had abandoned his request that the IAEA team stop at Russia’s site, saying it could reach Ukraine.
Meanwhile, UN leader Antonio Guterres suggested that Moscow forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine disconnect the grid facility and threaten to cut off materials to millions of Ukrainians.
A resurgence of fighting around the Russian-controlled nuclear power plant, with both sides blaming each other for the attacks, has raised the specter of a crisis worse than Chernobyl.
The Kremlin previously said Putin and Macron agreed that officials at the U. N. nuclear watchdog deserve to conduct inspections “as soon as possible” to “assess the real situation on the ground. “
Putin “emphasized that the systematic bombing through the Ukrainian army of the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear force plant creates the danger of a large-scale catastrophe,” the Kremlin added.
The warning came just a day after Turkish leaders Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Guterres, meeting in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lviv, sounded the alarm about intensifying fighting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested the United Nations protect the site.
The Turkish leader said: “We are worried. We don’t need Chernobyl,” referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster, while Guterres warned that any damage to the plant would amount to “suicide. “
– “Man-Made Catastrophe” –
During his stopover at the southern port of Odessa on Friday, the UN secretary-general said: “Obviously, zaporizhzhia’s electric power is Ukrainian electric power. This precept must be fully respected. “
“Naturally, their power will have to be used through the Ukrainian people,” he told AFP in separate comments.
His comments came after Ukrainian energy operator Energoatom alleged that Russian troops planned to “shut down reactors” in Zaporizhzhia, which is capable of powering 4 million homes.
On Thursday, Moscow said Kyiv was preparing a “provocation” at the site that would see Russia “accused of creating a man-made crisis in the factory. “
Kyiv, however, insisted Moscow is planning the provocation and said Russian forces ordered most of the workers’ corps to remain at home on Friday and appealed to officials at Russia’s state nuclear agency.
The UN leader visited Odessa as part of a call to make Ukrainian grain available to deficient countries suffering from rising food prices, following a landmark agreement with Russia last month to allow its export.
Earlier, Guterres met with Erdogan, who helped negotiate the grain deal signed in Istanbul, and Zelensky, and said the United Nations hopes to accentuate the deal before winter.
The deal, the only major deal between Russia and Ukraine since Moscow’s invasion in February, has noted 25 ships carrying some 600,000 tons of agricultural products leaving from 3 designated ports, Kyiv said.
But the call with Macron, the first in just about 3 months, Putin told the French leader that Russia faced obstacles in exporting its food and fertilizer.
– Export ‘obstacles’ –
“There are still obstacles to . . . Russian exports that do not contribute to solving similar disruptions to global food security,” the Kremlin said.
Guterres is expected to travel to Turkey after Odessa to make a stopover at the Joint Coordination Centre, the framework overseeing the deal.
The agreement between Kyiv and Moscow to clear the exit corridors of three Ukrainian ports, including Odessa, has somewhat eased concerns about global food shortages with countries at war among the world’s most sensitive producers.
The deal held, but brought little respite along the expanding front lines in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been slowly complicating themselves after just six months of fighting.
The main tool of Moscow’s forces has been artillery shelling, and the recent shelling of the eastern Donetsk region, which has been partially controlled through Russian proxies since 2014, has left several people dead.
Ukraine’s leader Pavlo Kyrylenko said on social media Friday that Russian movements killed five more people and wounded 10 others in three settlements.
PromotedSave the newest songs, in JioSaavn. com
Friday morning’s attacks in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s largest city at the moment, killed a user and vandalized a school and a user business, the region’s chief said. Russian movements around Kharkiv have killed more than a dozen people in the past two days.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed. )
Follow:
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Advertising. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .