Russia‘s state-controlled Gazprom unveiled a major escalation in its energy war with Western Europe on Friday by announcing the Nord Stream 1 pipeline will remain closed indefinitely, a move which threatens the prospect of blackouts and economic turmoil across the continent.
The announcement was immediately condemned in capitals across the continent, but despite the anger, Gazprom’s decision will only serve to increase fears that Europe, which has long relied on Russian energy, is facing a long, harsh winter on rationing and potentially crippling price rises.
The underwater 1,200km (745 miles) gas link, which runs from under the Baltic Sea near St Petersburg to north-eastern Germany, was due to reopen on Saturday after maintenance work for several days.
Gazprom said on social media that the leak was discovered in a vital turbine and had identified “malfunctions”. It did not give a timeframe to re-open.
Friday’s announcement by the Russian gas giant came just hours after G7 finance ministers agreed a global price cap on Russian oil and petroleum products.
The former chief executive of Energy UK said Vladimir Putin has been “playing” the “economic war” and “psychological war extremely well”, leaving us “panicking as a country”.
On the fallout from the decision by Russia’s majority state-owned company Gazprom to keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies gas to Europe, closed, Angela Knight, told Times Radio: “He’s (Putin’s) actually playing the economic war extremely well, he’s playing the psychological war extremely well.
“We have been panicking as a country – Europe has been panicking as well – and it’s not surprising and I’m not critical of it.
“I’m just saying that, actually, over the last, what, lets say 20-25 years, there’s been a view about energy policy which has resulted in a lot of dependencies from external countries and they’re not all that friendly.
“Now, I’m a great believer in international trade and I don’t think that we should be insular, I do believe that we need more energy security and I do believe that we need more security on our food, and we have to get there.
“I think what has happened is that we’ve been too far away from that personal security, that country security, and too far in to dependencies which were long-distance, semi-hostile, potentially hostile, and that there’s been too much of an eye closed to the consequences because the supply was cheap and plentiful and reasonably local.”
Councils are bracing themselves for an influx of homeless refugees amid warnings the government has “no plan” for the continuation of its flagship Homes for Ukraine scheme.
With hosts facing increased pressures from the rising cost of living, many local authorities are worried Ukrainian families will be left homeless when the initial six-month arrangements end.
Refugees, hosts and councillors are also concerned about how Ukrainians will find independent accommodation in an increasingly competitive rental market.
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A United Nations inspection team, led by its chief Rafael Grossi, returned late on Friday after managing to inspect the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant despite intense shelling in the area.
Speaking at a news conference upon his return to Vienna on Friday, Mr Grossi said six International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff members remain at Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, after he led a 14-person mission there.
He added that the number would be reduced to two next week and those two would be the IAEA’s continuous presence there in the longer term.
Both sides have accused the other of shelling near the facility which is still operated by Ukrainian staff and supplies more than a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity in peacetime.
Kyiv also accuses Russia of using it to shield its weapons, which Moscow denies. Russia has so far resisted international calls to pull troops out of the plant and demilitarise the area.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting renewed offensive operations in the south of Ukraine since 29 August, the British ministry of defence (MoD) has said in its latest intelligence update today.
One element of this offensive is an ongoing advance on a broad front west of the Dnipro River, focusing on three axes within Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast, it added.
“The operation has limited immediate objectives, but Ukraine’s forces have likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise; exploiting poor logistics, administration and leadership in the Russian armed forces.”
The ministry added that with fighting also continuing in the Donbas and Kharkiv sectors, a key decision for Russian commanders in the coming days will be where to commit any operational reserve forces they can generate.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 3 September 2022
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Russia’s state-controlled natural gas supplier, Gazprom, heralded a major escalation in Moscow’s energy war with Western Europe on Friday when it announced that the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would remain closed indefinitely, a move that increases the prospect of blackouts and economic turmoil across the continent.
The decision was immediately condemned in capitals across Europe, but despite the anger, Gazprom’s decision will only serve to increase fears that Europe, which has long relied on Russian energy, is facing a harsh winter ahead, which is likely to include rationing along with potentially crippling price rises.
The underwater 1,200km (745-mile) gas link, which runs from under the Baltic Sea near St Petersburg to northeastern Germany, was due to reopen on Saturday after undergoing maintenance work for several days.
Russia’s Gazprom shuts European gas pipeline indefinitely as energy crisis escalates
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader beloved of the West who lived long enough to see all the reforms he had championed in his homeland undone, will be buried on Saturday without state honours or the presence of the current Kremlin incumbent.
Gorbachev became a hero in the West for allowing eastern Europe to shake off more than four decades of Soviet communist control, letting East and West Germany reunite, and forging arms control treaties with the United States.
But when the 15 Soviet republics seized on the same freedoms to demand their independence, Gorbachev was powerless to prevent the collapse of the Union in 1991, six years after he had become its leader.
For that, and the economic chaos that his “perestroika” liberalisation programme unleashed, many Russians could not forgive him.
Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday aged 91, has been granted a public send-off - Muscovites will be able to view his coffin in the imposing Hall of Columns, within sight of the Kremlin, where previous Soviet leaders have been mourned.
But it was little surprise that Russian President Vladimir Putin, a long-time KGB intelligence officer who called the Soviet Union’s collapse a “geopolitical catastrophe”, denied Gorbachev full state honours and said he was too busy to attend the funeral.
Russia is using energy as a tool to pressure Europe, the White House said when asked about Russia‘s delayed return of its Nord Stream 1 natural gas pipeline.
“It is unfortunately not surprising that Russia continues to use energy as a weapon against European consumers,” a National Security Council spokesperson told Reuters in an email about the shutdown of the pipeline that sends gas to Europe.
Russia scrapped a Saturday deadline to resume flows on the line, deepening Europe’s problems in securing fuel for the upcoming winter.
Europe’s energy crisis loomed larger Friday after Russian energy giant Gazprom said it couldn’t resume the supply of natural gas through a major pipeline to Germany for now.
European utilities have scrambled to find additional supply during the summer months to get ready for the winter’s heating demands, buying expensive liquefied gas that comes by ship, while additional supplies have come by pipeline from Norway and Azerbaijan.
Fears of a winter shortage have eased somewhat as storage has progressed, but a complete cutoff could present Europe with serious difficulties, analysts say.
The European Union needs to step up efforts to reduce gas consumption, said energy policy expert Simone Tagliapietra at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.
The continuing interruptions from Gazprom mean that “a winter with zero Russian gas is the central scenario for Europe.” he said. “There is only one way to prepare for that: reducing gas and electricity demand.”
Gazprom said it had identified oil leaks from four turbines at the Portovaya compressor station at the Russian end of the pipeline, including the sole operational one.
It claimed to have received warnings from Russia‘s industrial safety watchdog that the leaks “do not allow for safe, trouble-free operation of the gas turbine engine.”
“In connection with this, it is necessary to take appropriate measures and suspend further operation of the . gas compressor unit in connection with the identified gross (safety) violations,” the company said.
The head of Germany’s network regulatory agency, Klaus Muller, tweeted that the Russian decision to keep Nord Stream 1 switched off for now increases the significance of new liquefied natural gas terminals that Germany plans to start running this winter, gas storage and a “significant need to save” gas.
It is “good that Germany is now better prepared, but now it comes down to everyone,” Mr Muller added.
Germany’s economy ministry said it had “taken note” of Gazprom’s latest announcement and would not comment on it directly, but added that “we have already seen Russia‘s unreliability in recent weeks” as they continued their efforts to reduce the country’s reliance on Russian energy imports.
“Of course these are difficult times but we will continue to strengthen provisions consistently,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Great efforts are still needed but we are on a good path to coping with the situation.”
The European Union has just reached its goal of filling its gas storage to 80%, ahead of a November 1 deadline, despite Russian supply cutbacks.
European utilities have scrambled to find additional supply during the summer months to get ready for the winter’s heating demands, buying expensive liquefied gas that comes by ship, while additional supplies have come by pipeline from Norway and Azerbaijan.
Fears of winter shortages have eased somewhat as storage has progressed, but a complete cut-off could present Europe with serious difficulties, analysts say.
Russia has asked for 56 visas from the United States to allow Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his delegation to travel to New York for the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations this month, but so far has received none.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, seen by Reuters on Friday, Russia‘s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said this was “alarming” because during the past several months Washington had “been constantly refusing to grant entry visas” to a number of Russian delegates for other U.N. events.
The United States takes seriously its obligations as U.N. host country, said a State Department spokesperson, adding that visa records are confidential under U.S. law so it could not comment on individual cases.
Under the 1947 U.N. “headquarters agreement,” the United States is generally required to allow access to the United Nations for foreign diplomats. But Washington says it can deny visas for “security, terrorism, and foreign policy” reasons.
The relationship between the United States and Russia has ruptured since Moscow invaded neighboring Ukraine in February.
“We process hundreds of visas every year for Russian Federation delegates to U.N. events,” said the State Department spokesperson, adding that applications should be submitted as early as possible to ensure timely processing.
“This is especially important because of Russia‘s unwarranted actions against our embassy in Russia, including the forced termination of local and third country national staff, which have severely limited our staffing and therefore our capacity to process visas,” the spokesperson said.
Nebenzia said that the necessary applications had been submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
Gazprom’s closure of Nord Stream 1 will be seen as a major escalation in Russia’s energy war with Western Europe and threatens the prospect of blackouts and economic turmoil across the continent.
The announcement was immediately condemned in capitals across the continent, but despite the anger, Gazprom’s decision will only serve to increase fears that Europe, which has long relied on Russian energy, is facing a long, harsh winter on rationing and potentially crippling price rises.
David Harding and Maryam Zakir-Hussain report:
Russia’s Gazprom announces pipeline to Europe to remain closed indefinitely
Russian energy giant Gazprom has announced a key pipeline taking gas into Europe is to remain closed indefinitely.
The Russian state-run energy company said in a social media post that it had identified “malfunctions” of a key turbine along the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which carries natural gas from western Russia to Germany.
Gazprom completely halted the flow of gas through Nord Stream 1 on Wednesday and had said the stoppage would last three days.
Reuters is reporting that the fifth reactor of Ukraine‘s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was reconnected to Ukraine‘s grid on Friday, a day after it shut down due to shelling near the site, Ukraine‘s state nuclear company Energoatom said.
“At present two reactor blocks are working at the station, generating electricity for the needs of Ukraine,” Energoatom said on the Telegram messaging app.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, was occupied by Russian troops in March, but continues to be operated by Ukrainian engineers despite repeated shelling on its territory, for which Kyiv and Moscow blame each other.
Ukraine has claimed that UN experts inspecting Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, which is in Russian-held territory, are being fed misinformation by Moscow.
David Harding has the latest.
UN nuclear experts at Zaporizhzhia being ‘manipulated’ by Russia, claims Ukraine
A 31-year-old woman from eastern Ukraine has been detained on accusations of sending the locations of her soldier husband’s unit and other army assets to Russian military intelligence, Ukraine‘s State Security Service (SBU) said on Friday.
The unnamed woman from Dnipropetrovsk region passed on information about the locations of military buildings and equipment along frontline positions in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, the SBU wrote on Telegram.
The woman would question her husband about the location of his unit and other Ukrainian formations on the frontline, Reuters reports.
“She would pass the information she received through messenger applications to Russian military intelligence, where it was used for artillery and air strikes,” the agency said in its statement said.
“She took this step despite the fact that she is married to a serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and that they have a son together,” the agency said.
Since the beginning of Moscow’s invasion, Ukraine‘s security services have been trying to disrupt and arrest a network of Russian agents.
The SBU, Ukraine‘s paramount domestic security agency, regularly announces the capture of people it says are spies who have been caught passing military intelligence to Moscow.
Finance ministers of the G7 group of leading democracies have agreed a global price cap on Russian oil and petroleum products.
Andrew Woodcock has the latest on this breaking story.
G7 agrees price cap on Russian oil to rein in runaway energy costs
Western officials have said Ukraine has pushed back Russian troops in several areas around Kherson, the city region in the south which fell to Vladimir Putin’s forces in February.
The officials said Ukrainians had made some tactical gains in the area, but warned it was too soon to determine if the offensive launched this week by Volodymyr Zelensky’ forces is succeeding.
Russian forces are understood to have around 20,000 troops west of the Dnipro river in the Kherson region. Ukraine’s long-range strikes had caused dismay within Russian forces, western officials said.
In a statement, Sir Stephen Lovegrove – the UK’s national security adviser – hailed the “courageous resistance” of Ukrainian forces which had “stalled the Russian advance” in recent days.
He added: “The risks around this terrible conflict continue as Putin finds he can’t make progress, his forces suffer heavy losses, and sanctions continue to degrade his war machine and take money out of the pockets of Russia’s richest people.”
Tory MP Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, has said he “suspects” that a nuclear weapon will be used.
“We’re in for a very, very difficult decade,” he told Times Radio.
“Our world will change. I suspect, horrible to say so, that we will see a tactical nuclear weapon used in the next 10 years.
The MP added: “I hope that will then wake people up to say, Wow, life is going to get dangerous. What are we going to do about it?”
Mr Ellwood said “other nations around the world look to Britain for leadership”, adding: “We do need another Churchill right now.”
"We will see a tactical nuclear weapon used in the next ten years. I hope that will then wake people up to say, wow, life is going to get dangerous."@Tobias_Ellwood tells @MattChorley on #TimesRadio that "our global order is being upended and we're in denial". pic.twitter.com/qCOgWt175q
Yazz and the Plastic Population (ask your parents) were top of the charts, and Big was, appropriately, the biggest movie of the year. But 1988 for me was all about Mikhail Gorbachev and the USSR, writes David Harding.
“Studying” at university, we were generously offered the chance to spend a summer living and learning a language abroad, even though it was only a small part of our course. The choices were French (couldn’t pronounce the words, still can’t), Spanish (my arrogant 18-year-old self said I already knew enough to get by after a couple of holidays), German (no thanks), or Russian, the language, according to US President Ronald Reagan of the “Evil Empire”.
There was little contest, as while my friends were getting ready to spend a summer in Pamplona, Provence or Berlin, the lure of Moscow was too strong. That might seem strange, but at the time of the Cold War, one half of Europe was virtually cut off to us in the West, and the only thing we ever saw or read about the USSR was grim. It was all about nuclear threats, grim people queuing up for food, and a long line of ancient leaders regularly dying and having funerals in the snow.
Opinion: I spent a summer living in Gorbachev’s USSR – this is what it was like
Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces have suffered “significant losses” in the southern region of Kherson during the ongoing counteroffensive.
Natalia Humeniuk, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military in the south, said: “The enemy suffers quite significant losses — losses in manpower have gone from tens to hundreds. Equipment also burns.
“We continue to destroy the enemy in terms of its logistics, capabilities, capacities. Ammunition warehouses explode, pontoon crossings explode.
“It means that the enemy’s logistics and transport connections are undermined to such an extent that they cannot raise reserves.”
French industrial gases producer Air Liquide will complete its withdrawal from Russia this month after it signed an agreement to shift its Russian assets to local management, the company said on Friday.
Air Liquide employs close to 720 people in Russia, which accounts for less than 1% of the group’s turnover, the company said.
It is the latest of a slew of Western companies that have withdrawn from the country after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing.
The map below is the latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 02 September 2022.
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The war in Ukraine would not have happened if Donald Trump was still president, his son-in-law has said.
Former senior adviser to Mr Trump, Jared Kushner, claimed the ex-president led peace in Europe and put China on its “backfoot.”
“We had peace in Europe, peace in the world. China was on their back foot and now we have a war in Ukraine with Russia - that never would have happened,” Mr Kushner said.
Thomas Kingsley has the details.
Jared Kushner claims Ukraine war would have never happened if Trump was president
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has accused Ukraine of continuing to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, raising the risks of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.
Shoigu accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism” and rejected assertions by Kyiv and the West that Russia had deployed heavy weapons at the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian control since March, Retuers reported.
This claim has not been independently verified. Both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of attacking the facility.
Reuters reports that two inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will stay at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on a permanent basis, Russia’s ambassador to international institutions in Vienna told the RIA Novosti news agency today.
An IAEA mission is currently at the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility which has been under the control of Russian forces since March.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) mission to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could still be important despite the difficulties met due to Russian presence at the site, Ukraine‘s president Volodymyr Zelensky said today.
“We did everything to ensure that IAEA would get access to the Zaporizhzhia plant and I believe that this mission may still have a role to play,” Zelensky said in a video streamed at The European House, Ambrosetti Forum meeting in northern Italy.
Ukraine‘s state nuclear company earlier on Friday said that the IAEA mission had not been allowed to enter the plant’s crisis centre, where Ukraine says Russian troops are stationed, and would struggle to make an impartial assessment of the situation, reports Reuters.
“Unfortunately we haven’t heard the main thing from the IAEA which is the call from Russia to demilitarize the station,” Zelenskiy said.
“I hope the mission will comply with what we’ve agreed and that it will serve the interests of the entire international community.”
He added that if the power plant could be returned to operating safely then Ukraine could assist with the energy crisis in Europe.
The mayor of Enerhodar said “constant mortar attacks” struck the Ukrainian city, near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, on the morning of Thursday, 1 September.
Dmytro Orlov claimed in a Telegram post that Russian shelling hit the “pre-agreed route” of the UN IAEA mission to the Zaporizhzhia plant, leading to the shutdown of a power unit.
Russian news agency Interfax said shelling hit residential buildings, a kindergarten building, and parked cars. An unknown number of casualties were sustained in the attack.
Footage circulating on Twitter claims to show explosions in the city that day.
Footage claims to show explosions in northern Ukraine near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Group of Seven finance ministers are expected to firm up plans on Friday to impose a price cap on Russian oil aimed at slashing revenues for Moscow’s war in Ukraine but keeping crude flowing to avoid price spikes, G7 officials said.
The ministers from the club of wealthy industrial democracies are due to meet virtually and are seen as likely to issue a communique that lays out their implementation plans.
“A deal is likely,” a European G7 official said, adding that it was unclear how much detail would be revealed, such as the per-barrel level of the price cap, above which complying countries would refuse insurance and finance to Russian crude and oil product cargoes.
British chancellor Nadhim Zahawi said on Thursday in Washington that he was hopeful that G7 finance ministers will “have a statement that will mean that we can move forward at pace to deliver this.”
“We want to get this oil price cap over the line,” he told a think tank event in Washington a day after discussing the cap with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
Despite Russia’s falling oil export volumes, its oil export revenue in June increased by $700 million from May due to prices pushed higher by its war in Ukraine, the International Energy Agency said last month.
The G7 consists of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. Some officials in the bloc have said that the cap needs broader backing and have questioned whether it can be successful without the participation of major oil consumers China and India, which are unlikely to endorse the plan.
But other G7 officials have said that China and India have expressed interest in buying Russian oil at an even lower price in line with the cap.
A cargo vessel carrying more than 3,000 tonnes (3,307 tons) of corn from Ukraine was towed to anchorage in Istanbul on Friday after it briefly ran aground, a shipping agency said, the first such incident under a United Nations-brokered export deal.
Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber said traffic in the Bosphorus strait had been reopened after it was halted due to the grounding of the 173-meter (567.59 ft) Lady Zehma due to a rudder failure around 1800 GMT.
The Tribeca shipping agency said the towage and salvage operation of Lady Zehma started at 2110 GMT and it dropped anchor at the southern Bosphorus anchorage area at 2330 GMT.
No one was hurt in the incident, the Istanbul governor’s office said. During the grounding, the ship’s bow had been about 150 meters from shore in the busy Bebek neighbourhood, according to a witness and Refinitiv Eikon data.
The shipping data showed the vessel was at anchor in the Marmara Sea, just off the coast of Istanbul, on Friday morning.
Ukraine‘s grain exports slumped after Russia invaded the country on February 24 and blockaded its Black Sea ports, driving up global food prices and prompting fears of shortages in Africa and the Middle East, Reuters reports.
Three ports were unblocked under the deal signed on July 22 by Moscow and Kyiv, and brokered by the U.N. and Ankara.
Norwegian energy firm Equinor said on Friday it had completed its exit from Russia in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, delivering on a promise made in February, reports Reuters.
This marks the first full, orderly exit from Russia by an international oil and gas firm as pressure mounts on others, such as TotalEnergies and Exxon Mobil, to also leave.
Equinor on February 28 said it would start the process of divesting from joint ventures in Russia, describing its position as “untenable” due to the outbreak of war the previous week.
Since then, Equinor had one asset left to divest from, a stake in the Arctic Kharyaga oilfield, operated by Russia’s Zarubezhneft and in which TotalEnergies is a partner.
“Equinor can now confirm that the full exit from Kharyaga has also been completed,” Equinor said in a statement.
“Following the exit from Kharyaga, Equinor has no remaining assets or projects in Russia.”
Heavy fighting continues in southern Ukraine, including shelling in Enerhodar district, near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the British defence ministry said today.
It added that the Kremlin has gone ahead with military exercise Vostok 22 — an annual joint strategic exercise affair — marking the culmination of the military training year even as its war in Ukraine plays out.
“Russia publicly claimed that 50,000 troops will take part, however, it’s unlikely that more than 15,000 personnel will be actively involved this year. This is around 20% of the forces which participated in the last Vostok exercise in 2018,” the British MoD said today.
It added that Russia’s military performance in Ukraine has highlighted that its “military strategic exercises, such as Vostok, have failed to sustain the military’s ability to conduct large scale, complex operations.”
Such events are heavily scripted, do not encourage initiative, and primarily aim to impress Russian leaders and international audiences, the ministry claimed.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 2 September 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/wvJSvvSkuV
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Over 100 Russian soldiers have been killed in the last 24 hours, officials from the Ukrainian military said on Friday morning.
A total of 102 Russian troops have been killed, while six tanks, one Msta-B howitzer, one Grad multiple rocket launcher, a mobile 120-mm mortar, eight armoured vehicles, and five ammunition depots were destroyed on 1 September, Ukraine’s operational command south said.
Ukrainian forces also struck a drone control post and a ferry crossing in the south, the army officials added.
Ukrainian officials have confirmed shelling by Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv city this morning.
The shelling was reported from Kholodnohirskyi district around 6am by Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov.
At least four cars have been damaged but no casualties have been reported so far, as per the initial information.
Officials from the UN’s atomic watchdog visiting the Russia-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant said that the physical integrity of Europe’s critical infrastructure has been harmed.
"It is obvious that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated, several times ... this is something that cannot continue to happen," director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency Dr Rafael Grossi said.
The IAEA team reached the power plant site after getting delayed by several hours due to heavy shelling in the region. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, captured by Russia within days of invasion, has been witnessing heavy firing from both sides — Ukraine and Russia — for months now.
"This morning the situation was pretty difficult but ... having come this far, I was not going to stop," Dr Grossi, who himself came uncomfortably close to the gunfire, said.
"There were moments where fire was obvious, heavy machine gun, artillery mortars, at two or three times (it was) really very concerning I would say for all of us," he said.
At least three people have been killed and five wounded in Ukrainian shelling of Enerhodar, Russia-installed Zaporizhzhia oblast governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
A residential building was also struck by shelling in Russia-controlled Enerhodar on the Dnipro river and witnesses reported soldiers running about with helicopters flying overhead. The casualties from the shelling were not immediately clear.
Officials in Ukraine reported heavy shelling late yesterday and said around a dozen southern towns had come under Russian attack, including regions like Kharkiv in the north and Donetsk in the east.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for all troops to be removed from the critical nuclear power plant site in Enerhodar as a group of UN nuclear agency officials visited the Zaporizhzhia plant on Thursday.
He said that the nuclear power plant will only return to completely safe functioning after the Russian military is finally made to leave the territory, “when they take away their weapons, ammunition, when they stop shelling Enerhodar and neighbouring areas and cease their provocations”.
Mr Zelensky added: “And the key thing that should happen is the demilitarisation of the territory of the plant. This is exactly the goal of Ukrainian and international efforts. And it is bad that we have not yet heard the appropriate calls from the IAEA.”
Stating that the IAEA has not helped Ukraine by calling for demilitarisation, the Ukrainian president said: “Although we talked about it with Mr Grossi [IAEA chief] at our meeting in Kyiv. This was the key - the key! - security point of our agreements. It was clearly stated: demilitarisation and full control by Ukrainian nuclear specialists.”
On the Russian side, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow was doing everything to ensure that the plant could operate safely, and for the IAEA inspectors to be able to complete their tasks.
Good morning! Welcome to our coverage of the Ukraine war for Friday, 2 September.