Russia’s war against Ukraine is now entering its ninth day and shows no sign of stopping any time soon after talks between the two sides yesterday broke up without agreement, before Vladimir Putin went on TV to declare that he would keep battling for ‘total victory’ whilst spouting propaganda that Russia’s forces are not deliberately targeting civilians and that the ‘special operation’ is proceeding on time with all of its major objectives completed to schedule.
Fighting is expected to ramp up around the cities of Mykolaiv and Odessa, in Ukraine’s south, in the coming days – with a mass amphibious assault on Odessa feared after dozens of Russian landing ships were pictured massing near Crimea.
The port city of Kherson fell to Russian soldiers yesterday with the city of Mariupol, on the other side of the Crimean peninsula, now under heavy bombardment as Moscow’s men try to bomb it into submission – with the aim being to cut off Ukrainian access to the Black Sea and deny the government access to lucrative trading routes.
Fighting is also continuing across the north and east, with Ukrainian special forces ambushing and destroying Russian tanks and armoured vehicles at Hostomel – to the west of the city – and Brovary – to the east – late yesterday and this morning. Ukraine also claimed its jets have targeted part of a 40-mile convoy currently stalled outside the city, amid fears it would encircle the capital and bombard it.
Russian troops had attacked the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early hours of Friday, with CCTV capturing a fierce gun battle between Putin’s men and Ukrainian defenders that sparked a fire in a six-storey training building just outside the main complex. Moscow’s men then stopped firefighters getting to the building for several hours.
Ukraine War: The latest Updates.
- Fire at Europe’s biggest nuclear power station at Zaporizhzhia is put out after Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘nuclear terror’ in shelling the plant. Russian troops later take the reactors
- Diplomats from NATO, the EU and G7 will all meet in Europe today to discuss next moves to contain crisis
- Russia admits ‘limiting’ access to news websites including the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, independent Russian site Meduza and Germany’s Deutsche Welle, with Facebook blocked
- Russian lawmakers approve legislation providing up to 15 years in jail for any publication of fake news about the Russian armed forces
- Thirty-three people are killed as Russian forces hit residential areas, including schools, in the northern city of Chernihiv
- Russia and Ukraine agree to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from cities
- Russian President Vladimir Putin says Moscow’s advance is going ‘according to plan’
- Senior US Republican senator Lindsey Graham calls for ‘somebody in Russia’ to assassinate Putin
- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky calls for direct talks with Putin as the ‘only way to stop the war’
- Russian forces take the Black Sea port of Kherson as it appears Moscow is trying to cut Ukraine’s access to the sea
- US and EU offer temporary protection for Ukrainian refugees so far numbering more than 1million
- Russians pack trains out of the country to Finland, fearful that it is their last chance to escape the impact of swingeing Western sanctions
- Sanctioned Russian oil giant Lukoil calls for a halt to fighting in Ukraine, one of the first major domestic firms to speak out
- Russian tech giant Yandex warns it may default on its debt after it was suspended from trading on New York’s digital stock exchange
- The China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank suspends business with Russia and Belarus in a sign of their deepening pariah status
- Ex-Soviet states Georgia and Moldova – which borders Ukraine’s threatened south – apply to join the EU
- The Beijing Winter Paralympics opens with Russian athletes banned.
Ukraine is home to three other active nuclear power plants, one of which is located 70 miles from the city of Mykolaiv which Russian forces have begun attacking after seizing nearby Kherson.
The other two active sites are located in the west and are not currently under threat, though that situation could change as the Russian attack branches out. Ukraine also has five sites which are out of action, but could still pose a risk if hit by shells.
Nuclear experts told the BBC that attacks on Zaporizhzhia were ‘frightening’, and that damaging nuclear plants risks creating a disaster similar to what happened at Fukushima in 2011 after it was hit by a tsunami – where a loss of power results in uncontrolled heating and an eventual meltdown.
Claire Corkhill, professor of nuclear materials at Sheffield University, told the corporation that the reactors at Zaporizhzhia now appear to be shutting down to remove the danger – which may have been Russia’s intention in attacking the plant.
