The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has denounced this Wednesday that three cruise missiles launched by Russia have flown simultaneously over power units of three Ukrainian nuclear power plants: Zaporizhia, Khmelnytska and Yuzhnoukrainsk. Zelenski has assured that the releases were simultaneous and he has wondered what this movement is due to and if it constitutes a threat: “I have no words for this,” he added. According to him, the actions of the Russian military near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have shown that they do not understand nuclear safety rules.
“It turns out that they do not understand what Chernobyl is. (…) The Russian troops who tried to attack kyiv through the Chernobyl zone used this closed territory as a military foothold,” Zelensky recalled, adding: “They have established positions on the ground, where it is dangerous even to stand. They have driven armored vehicles into the territory where radiation-contaminated materials are buried. The amount of radioactive particles there is off the scale.”
Along these lines, Zelensky has also warned that the Russians “have destroyed the radioactivity monitoring points, the state control systems at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, they have looted the analytical nuclear laboratory. They have even stolen contaminated objects“. However, he stressed that, at present, the uninterrupted operation of the stations, including the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, temporarily occupied by the Russians, can be guaranteed thanks to the professionalism of the Ukrainian specialists still working there.
Since the beginning of the conflict, Russia has launched more than 1,300 missiles against Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar highlighted on Wednesday. “According to our data, (Russia’s) reserves have already been reduced by more than half since they started using them at the start of the invasion on February 24. More than 1,000 rockets have already been used. To be more precise, more than 1,300 missiles,” Maliar added.
The deputy minister added that these are missiles launched from the sea, the air and the land. However, she has acknowledged that she believes Russia still has enough missiles to cause serious damage to Ukraine. At the same time, Maliar has pointed out that Russia is currently considering many scenarios, in addition to the traditional use of ground forces, aircraft and missile attacks. By this she was referring to the possibility that Moscow resorts to the use of chemical or nuclear weaponswhich has been considered a blackmail and an intimidation to the whole world.
Dramatic situation in Azovstal
The Ukrainian president’s statements come very few after the country’s authorities warned of the situation of thousands of civilians at the Azovstal plant in the city of Mariupol and new offensive operations in the Kharkov region. “There are at least 2,000 civilians in the metallurgical plant. Women, children and the elderly. There are many injured. In unsanitary and appalling conditions. Without medication. There is a catastrophic situation with drinking water and food. We need help immediately,” the City Council has warned. of Mariupol.
All despite the fact that the Russian authorities announced a unilateral ceasefire on Monday in order to facilitate the implementation of a humanitarian corridor with which to evacuate civilians resisting alongside Ukrainian troops at the Azovstal metallurgical plant in the city of Mariupol. On the other hand, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have warned that “the enemy has captured the northeastern outskirts of the Bolshaya Kamyshevakha settlement and has also taken control of the Zavody settlement” in the Kharkov region.
“The enemy continues to conduct offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone to defeat the Joint Forces, establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts and maintain a land route with occupied Crimea“, said the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army. Thus, it has stated in a message on its official Facebook account that “the greatest activity by the Russian occupying forces is observed in the direction of Slobozhanski and Donetsk”.
22,400 Russian soldiers would have died in combat since the start of the war, according to the Ukrainian Army
In this line, he highlighted that “The Russian enemy is taking steps to replace its units that suffered casualties” during the hostilities. The Army has also reported that “to increase the grouping of troops, the Russian occupiers transferred two battalions of tactical groups from the territory of the Belgorod region to the city of Izium”, while in Donetsk “the enemy units Russian forces carry out active operations in almost the entire line of contact”.
In another order of things, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army has estimated that “close to 22,400″ the number of Russian soldiers killed in combat since the start of the war and has indicated that so far 939 battle tanks, 421 artillery systems and 149 self-propelled and armored multiple rocket launchers have been destroyed. Finally, he highlighted that 71 anti-aircraft defense systems, 185 planes, 155 helicopters, 1,666 vehicles, eight boats, 76 fuel tanks and 207 drones have also been destroyed during the hostilities.
Transnitria, new key in the war?
In all this war scenario a new name has entered in the last few hours: Transnitria. The president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, has assured that the Russian Federation tries to destabilize the delicate situation that crosses this Moldovan separatist region, bordering the Ukrainian southwest, to promote the entry of its troops into that pro-Russian area. Precisely, this Wednesday the Ministry of the Interior of Transnistria has reported a shooting near the town of Kolbasna, where there is a large warehouse of weapons and ammunition from Soviet times, guarded by a Russian military contingent.
“On the morning of April 27, around 8:45 a.m., shots were fired from the Ukrainian side in the direction of the town of Kolbasna,” the department explained, detailing that no victims have been reported at the moment. The Presidency of the territory has already warned that on Monday and Tuesday “there were three terrorist attacks in Transnistria. They fired grenade launchers at the building of the Ministry of State Security, there were two explosions in the radio-television center of the town of Maiak, and they attacked a military unit in Parcani.”
According to the Chisinau government, this series of attacks hides provocations that aim to destabilize the situation in that region and involve it in the war with Ukraine, with which it shares a border. An assessment that Zelensky claims to fully share: “We clearly understand that this is one of the steps of the Russian Federation. Special services are already working there. This is not just fake news,” the Ukrainian leader said.
And “it is clear why: to destabilize the situation in the region, to threaten Moldova. They show them that if Moldova supports Ukraine, there will be certain steps“, the Ukrainian president stressed. According to him, Ukraine knows that Russian troops, which have been present in Transnistria supporting separatists for many years, are in constant readiness. “But we understand their capabilities, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are ready for this and they are not afraid of them”, assured the Ukrainian head of state.
Russia destroys US and EU weapons
Finally, and for its part, the Russian Armed Forces have claimed to have destroyed “a large batch” of weapons and ammunition in eastern Ukraine that had allegedly been sent by the United States and European countries, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The spokesman for the Ministry, Igor Konashenkov, has assured that said destruction occurred in the area of Zaporizhia, the result of an attack with Kalibr cruise missiles. The weapons would be in an aluminum plant in this area, according to the Interfax news agency.
Moscow has included this information in its morning part of the war, in which it also reports on the alleged destruction of more than 600 Ukrainian military installations and the death of more than 120 people as a result of air strikes. Russian forces are concentrating their offensive in eastern Ukraine, with a view to consolidating advances that will connect the Donbas region with the Crimean peninsula, after failed attempts to advance in other parts of the center such as the capital, kyiv.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
