Ukraine latest updates: UN urges demilitarisation of power plant
Ukraine news from September 6: UN chief calls for a demilitarised perimeter around the Zaporozhzhia nuclear power plant.
- United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to agree to a demilitarised perimeter around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
- Guterres’s remark comes following the release of an IAEA report on the power station which recommended the establishment of a ‘security zone’ as the UN nuclear watchdog experts found extensive damage at the plant.
- United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to agree to a demilitarised perimeter around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
- Guterres’s remark comes following the release of an IAEA report on the power station which recommended the establishment of a ‘security zone’ as the UN nuclear watchdog experts found extensive damage at the plant.
- Russian-installed commander in Berdiansk city killed after car bomb explosion; authorities call the incident a terror attack.
- Ukraine claims success in its counteroffensive against Russian forces, posting an image online of soldiers raising the blue and yellow flag on a rooftop purportedly in Kherson.
- A Russian missile attack kills three civilians in the Kharkiv region, says a local official.
This live blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Tuesday, September 6:
Truss speaks to Zelenskyy, expresses ‘full backing’: spokeswoman
The United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister Liz Tuss has pledged her full backing to Ukraine in a call to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, shortly after taking office.
“In her first call with a counterpart since becoming prime minister, she reiterated to the Ukrainian leader that he had her full backing, and Ukraine could depend on the UK’s assistance for the long term,” a spokeswoman said.
Zelenskyy says ‘coordinated’ with Truss ‘further pressure’ on Russia
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he had “coordinated” with the UK’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss “further pressure” on Russia in the seventh month of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The goal is to stop the aggression and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter, claiming he was the first foreign leader who had talks with Truss after she was confirmed in her new role.
We discussed the participation of 🇬🇧 in the recovery of 🇺🇦. Coordinated further pressure on the RF. The goal is to stop the aggression & bring the perpetrators to justice. It's important to designate the RF a terrorist state. We'll continue active interaction in all formats. 2/2
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 6, 2022
Russia ‘regrets’ IAEA report did not blame Ukraine: UN envoy
Russia has voiced regret that a report by the UN nuclear watchdog warning of risks at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant did not blame Kyiv for shelling the Moscow-occupied site.
“We regret that in your report … the source of the shelling is not directly named,” Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told a Security Council session attended virtually by Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA.
UN chief urges Russia, Ukraine to demilitarise nuclear power plant
UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged Russia and Ukraine to agree to a demilitarised perimeter around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
“As a first step, Russian and Ukrainian forces must commit not to engage in any military activity towards the plant site or from the plant site,” Guterres told the UN Security Council.
“As a second step, an agreement on a demilitarised perimeter should be secured. Specifically, that would include a commitment by Russian forces to withdraw all military personnel and equipment from that perimeter and a commitment by Ukrainian forces not to move into it,” he told the 15-member body.
Ukraine city housing Europe’s largest nuclear plant shelled: exiled mayor
The Ukraine city of Enerhodar, home to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, has been shelled by Russian forces, its exiled mayor has said.
“There are explosions in Enerhodar city, provocations continue, there are shellings by the occupants,” Dmytro Orlov wrote on social media, hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency called for a security zone around the Russian-occupied plant.
Commandant of Russian-controlled Ukrainian city killed in bomb blast: local official
The Russian-installed commandant of a southern Ukrainian city has died in a blast, a local official told the Reuters news agency, the latest in a series of assassinations in occupied areas of southern Ukraine.
Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russian-backed administration of the Zaporizhia region, blamed the Ukrainian government for Artyom Bardin’s death.
Russian media earlier said Bardin was hospitalised and in critical condition, after his car exploded outside the city administration building in Berdiansk, an Azov Sea port of about 100,000 people that was captured by Russian troops in February.
The city’s deputy chief of traffic police died on August 26 after being wounded in a bomb blast, local officials said. On August 30, Alexei Kovalev, a former lawmaker with Zelenskyy’s party turned Russian-backed official in the Kherson region, was shot dead.
Ukraine official promises ‘great news’ from Kharkiv counteroffensive
An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff says he expected Kyiv to announce “great news” about its counteroffensive in the eastern Kharkiv region on Tuesday evening, without giving further details.
“Tonight there is going to be great news from President Zelenskiy on [the] counteroffensive operation in Kharkiv region,” Serhiy Leshchenko said on Twitter.
Tonight there is going to be a great news from President Zelenskyy on counteroffensive operation in Kharkiv region.
— Serhiy Leshchenko (@Leshchenkos) September 6, 2022
Kharkiv region, in northeast Ukraine, is on the far end of the front line from the southern Kherson region, which Ukraine last week announced as the focus of a push to retake territory.
US not to declare Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism
US President Joe Biden has made a final decision against designating Russia as a “state sponsor of terror”, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre has said.
The decision was announced a day after Biden said Russia should not be designated a “state sponsor of terrorism”, a label Ukraine has pushed for amid Russia’s continuing invasion while Moscow has warned it would rupture US-Russian ties.
The designation of Russia as a “state sponsor of terror” could delay food exports and jeopardise deals to move goods through the Black Sea, Jean-Pierre said.
Zelensky rings the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange
Partisan activity increases in the occupied southern parts of Ukraine
From blowing up infrastructure and destroying arms depots, to spray-painting messages for the invading Russian forces, partisan activity is increasing in Ukraine, especially in the occupied southern parts.
The Free Ukraine Resistance Movement, a citizen-led group, writes on its website: “We’ve literally ruined Putin’s plans to ruin Ukraine from inside … Even months before the full-scale invasion, [we’d] already started to mobilise and train people for all levels of resistance to defend Ukraine – military, communications, humanitarian help, and diplomacy.”
Mainly active in the southern parts of the occupied Zaporizhia region and around the city of Kherson, where Ukraine is waging a counteroffensive, partisan activity has become more coordinated since the start of the war.
More on Ukrainian partisans here.
IAEA report: conditions of Ukrainian staff operating the plant should be improved
The UN nuclear watchdog on Tuesday listed damage to parts of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia power plant and recommended that the conditions Ukrainian staff operating the plant are working in should be improved.
“Ukrainian staff operating the plant under Russian military occupation are under constant high stress and pressure, especially with the limited staff available,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. “This is not sustainable and could lead to increased human error with implications for nuclear safety.”
The report also added: “The situation in Ukraine is unprecedented. It is the first time a military conflict has occurred amid the facilities of a large, established nuclear power program.
“A nuclear accident can have serious impacts within the country and beyond its borders, and the international community is relying on the IAEA to perform a rigorous assessment of the situation and to keep it informed with accurate and timely information.”
🚨 New IAEA report on the nuclear safety, security and safeguards situation in #Ukraine.
Includes findings from our ongoing Support and Assistance Mission to #Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant.
📑 https://t.co/Qy45ajMcxE pic.twitter.com/BnrxBscYSS— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency (@iaeaorg) September 6, 2022
IAEA report finds urgent need for interim measures to prevent nuclear accident
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report finds that there is an urgent need for interim measures to prevent a nuclear accident arising from the damage caused by military means.
This can be achieved, the report said, by the immediate establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone.
While at the plant, the IAEA said the team saw damage to the special building that houses new nuclear fuel and the solid radioactive waste storage facility.
However, the IAEA has said it has not found any indication that would give rise to a proliferation concern.
European commissioner for energy to unveil bloc-wide package next week
The European commissioner for energy says the EU’s next steps for addressing the continent’s worsening energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are expected to be unveiled next week.
Many European countries have tightened their belts as energy costs soar amid the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia’s the European Commission president says the EU’s electricity market “is no longer operating”.
A meeting of the European Union’s energy ministers will be held in Brussels on Friday to discuss a bloc-wide package of solutions to the power market cost spikes, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told The Associated Press in an interview.
“Right now, in this situation where Russia is using their natural gas supplies as a weapon, we have to take care to secure the supply. And that means that some extraordinary investments are needed,” Simson said when asked about the environmental concerns.
Gazprom says it has signed deal for China to pay for Russian gas in national currencies
Russia’s Gazprom says it has signed an agreement to start switching payments for Russia’s gas supplies to China to yuan and roubles instead of dollars.
Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said allowing for payments in Russian roubles and Chinese yuan was “mutually beneficial” for both Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation and would set an example for other companies to follow.
The weight of the Russia-Ukraine war
After six months of war in Ukraine, Al Jazeera correspondent Teresa Bo shares her experience reporting both grief and defiance.
Berdiansk city commander hospitalised after car bomb
In the south-eastern port city of Berdiansk, a car belonging to a local commandant was blown up, said Vladimir Rogov an official in the Russian-backed administration of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Artem Bardin has been hospitalised and is in serious condition, Rogov said, adding that after the explosion, there was a shoot-out where at least one person was injured.
Authorities have called the incident a “terrorist attack”.
Ukraine looks to jokes as latest weapon in the war
On August 9, at least a dozen explosions rocked a Russian military base in Crimea.
Russia’s defence ministry avoided assigning blame – saying the “detonation of several aviation ammunition stores” caused the blast – while, for its part, Ukraine’s military played it coy. It did not claim responsibility for the damaged combat planes, nor for a subsequent drone attack on the navy headquarters in the Russian-occupied area.
Instead, Ukraine’s defence ministry mockingly warned on Twitter about the dangers of smoking – sardonically suggesting that Russian soldiers caused the explosions themselves by tossing lit cigarettes.
“Time to head home … Crimea is Ukraine,” read the text on the faux-tourism video it tweeted, in which Bananarama’s 1983 song Cruel Summer is heard playing over footage of shocked sunbathers fleeing a nearby beach as smoke from the blasts looms in the background.
In the days that followed, a barrage of similar lampooning posts appeared on various Ukrainian military Twitter handle
Who controls what in Ukraine?
Here are three maps, which Al Jazeera updates daily, charting the war.
Russia revokes No magazine license a day after banning sister newspaper Novaya Gazeta
A day after banning one of Russia’s last independent newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow court on Tuesday revoked the license of its sister magazine, founded just two months ago.
On Tuesday, the same Basmanny District Court, that banned Novaya Gazeta, revoked the license of No (But) publication, because of its failure to appear from 2009, when it was registered, until 2022.
“Why did Roskomnadzor [media watchdog] go to court only after the magazine was printed?” said Novaya Gazeta lawyer Yaroslav Kozheurov.
“It is absolutely clear that the appeal to the court is not due to the fact that the magazine was not published, but due to the fact that the magazine started appearing.
Three paper issues of No have been published since July, but Roskomnadzor blocked the magazine’s website less than a week after it was created.
Putin attends Vostok military exercises involving troops from China and India
President Vladimir Putin has attended large-scale military exercises on Tuesday in Russia’s far east involving China and other “friendly” countries.
Slapped with unprecedented sanctions from Washington and Brussels, Putin has pursued closer ties with countries in Africa, South America and Asia – especially China.
By proceeding with the four-yearly Vostok (East) exercises, Putin appeared to be sending a signal that Russia’s military can conduct business as usual despite the demands of the Ukraine war, where his forces have suffered heavy losses in men and equipment after occupying nearly a fifth of Ukraine.
.Ukraine launched 15 artillery attacks in 24 hours, says Russia
The Russian defence ministry has said on Telegram that Ukraine had launched 15 artillery attacks on the city of Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the last 24 hours.
In the ministry’s daily briefing, it said that Ukrainian artillery had launched a total of 20 projectiles, including three at the nuclear power plant and one that exploded near power unit Number Two.
The radiation, at Europe’s largest nuclear facility, remained normal, it added.
Al Jazeera was unable to verify the report.
UN nuclear watchdog to issue a report on the Zaporizhzhia power station
The UN nuclear watchdog is due to issue a report on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station on Tuesday, a day after shelling cut its electricity supplies for the second time in two weeks and raised fears of a catastrophe.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of risking disaster by shelling near Europe’s largest nuclear plant, which officials said disrupted power lines on Monday and took the sole remaining reactor offline.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday warned of a near “radiation catastrophe” and said the shelling showed Russia “does not care what the IAEA will say”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi will issue a report on Ukraine, including the plant, on Tuesday and then brief the UN Security Council, the IAEA said.
Three killed in Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv: Ukranian offical
Three people were killed as a result of Russian rocket fire in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region over the past day, including an elderly woman, the region’s governor said on Tuesday.
“That night, the enemy once again launched a rocket attack on Kharkiv,” governor Oleh Synehubov wrote on Telegram.
“In the industrial district, a two-storey building was damaged and a private residential building, in which a 73-year-old woman was staying, was destroyed. Unfortunately, she died,” he said.
In a separate message, the governor reported a new rocket attack on Tuesday morning and said a residential apartment building in the central part of the city was almost destroyed.
“Three people have already been rescued from under the ruins of a residential building – two women and a man,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram.
On Tuesday morning, an air raid alert was issued throughout Ukraine and authorities reported explosions in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where a fuel depot was hit.
Gazprom gas flows to Europe via Ukraine seen as stable on Tuesday
Russia’s Gazprom gas company has said it will ship 42.2 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine after gas flows were seen as stable, while the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany remained shut and eastbound gas flows via the Yamal-Europe pipeline to Poland from Germany continued at low levels.
Russian flows of gas via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which runs under the Baltic sea, remained at zero on Tuesday after Russia scrapped the Saturday deadline to resume flows following maintenance.
The pipeline historically supplied about a third of the gas exported by Russia to Europe but was running at only 20 percent capacity before the outage last week.
However, the gas pipeline will not resume gas supplies until Siemens Energy repairs faulty equipment, Gazprom’s Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov told Reuters on Tuesday.
“You should ask Siemens, they have to repair equipment first,” he said on the sidelines of Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok, when asked about when the pipeline could start pumping gas again.
Ukraine making ‘real gains’ in the counteroffensive: UK defence secretary
Ukrainians are making “real gains” in their counteroffensive, but the fighting is “close and hard”, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has said.
Speaking in the House of Commons about Ukraine’s counterattack in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Wallace said: “Ukraine has inflicted serious damage on a range of river crossings with the aim of restricting Russian logistical support”.
Wallace said Ukrainians are engaging with Russian forces, adding: “They are making real gains but understandably, as we have seen elsewhere in this conflict, the fighting is close and hard and Ukraine are suffering losses associated with an attacking force.”
Ukraine recently launched attacks against Russian forces in several locations, including around Kherson, which Russia occupied early on in the invasion. In preparation for these latest attacks, Ukrainian forces struck Russian supply areas, including those containing artillery and ammunition.