Russia could undermine security of captured nuclear plant, British intelligence says
In its daily intelligence briefing, the UK Ministry of Defense focuses on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since March.
He says that while Russia’s intentions for the plant are unclear, “the actions they have taken at the facility have likely undermined the safety and security of the plant’s normal operations.”
The MoD adds:
Russian forces are likely operating in the regions adjacent to the power plant and have used artillery units based in those areas to attack Ukrainian territory on the western bank of the Dnipro River.
Russian forces have likely used the wider area of the facility, particularly the adjacent town of Enerhodar, to rest their forces, using the protected status of the nuclear power plant to reduce the risk to their equipment and personnel of the Ukrainian attacks during the night.
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Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong has walked out during her Russian counterpart’s speech at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia.
It is understood an Australian official was still present as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke and it was not a pre-planned protest by Wong.
“Minister Wong could not accept Lavrov’s attempt to justify the killing of innocent Ukrainians,” a spokesman said.
At the G20 in Indonesia last month, Wong said Russia’s aggression “cannot be normalized and cannot be minimized.”
She added:
Russia’s unprovoked, unwarranted and illegal invasion of Ukraine is not only the cause of untold loss of life and damage.
Not only is it a major cause of the global energy and food security crisis that is wreaking havoc on our economies and pushing millions more of the world’s people into severe food insecurity.
It is also a profound breach of trust. And it is up to all nations to call to account for this violation, or the cost will be borne by all of us.
This was first reported on our live news blog from Australia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has responded directly to Amnesty International’s report yesterday, which suggested that Ukrainian forces’ tactics put civilians at risk.
Human rights group investigators found that Ukrainian forces used some schools and hospitals as bases, shot near homes and sometimes lived in residential apartments. The report concluded that this meant, in some cases, that Russian forces would respond to an attack or target residential areas, putting civilians at risk and damaging civilian infrastructure.
In response, Zelenskiy said:
There can be, not even hypothetically, any condition under which any Russian attack on Ukraine would be justified.
The aggression against our state is unprovoked, invasive and openly terrorist.
And if someone makes a report where the victim and the perpetrator are allegedly the same in something, if you look at some data about the victim and ignore what the perpetrator was doing at the time, that cannot be tolerated.
Three ships carrying grain leave Ukrainian ports
Three ships carrying tens of thousands of tons of grain have already left Ukrainian ports, according to the Turkish defense ministry and the Reuters news agency.
These departures follow an internationally negotiated agreement to unblock Ukraine’s agricultural exports and ease the growing global food crisis.
Two of the ships departed from Chornomorsk and the other departed from nearby Odesa. In total, Reuters said, they are carrying about 58,000 tonnes of corn.
Bulk carrier Rojen departs Chornomorsk seaport on Friday morning. Photograph: Reuters
On Twitter, Turkey’s defense ministry said the Panamanian-flagged Navistar, which was carrying 33,000 tonnes of corn, was bound for Ireland.
He added that the Maltese-flagged Rojen, carrying 13,000 tonnes of maize, was heading for the UK.
The Turkish-flagged ship Polarnet, carrying 12,000 tonnes of maize, is heading for the Turkish port of Karasu on the Black Sea.
The Turkish-flagged Polarnet after leaving Chornomorsk on Friday. Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Updated at 08.18 BST
Below are some of the latest images being archived from photographers on the ground in Ukraine:
Ukrainian military personnel load a Bureviy multiple rocket launch system into a position in Kharkiv Photo: Reuters Two women look out the window of a tram in Kramatorsk Photo: Bülent Kılıç/AFP/Getty Images A Ukrainian soldier with part of the rocket fired by the forces Russians in Bakhmut Photo: Bülent Kılıç/AFP/Getty Images
Russia could undermine security of captured nuclear plant, British intelligence says
In its daily intelligence briefing, the UK Ministry of Defense focuses on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since March.
He says that while Russia’s intentions for the plant are unclear, “the actions they have taken at the facility have likely undermined the safety and security of the plant’s normal operations.”
The MoD adds:
Russian forces are likely operating in the regions adjacent to the power plant and have used artillery units based in those areas to attack Ukrainian territory on the western bank of the Dnipro River.
Russian forces have likely used the wider area of the facility, particularly the adjacent town of Enerhodar, to rest their forces, using the protected status of the nuclear power plant to reduce the risk to their equipment and personnel of the Ukrainian attacks during the night.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet for talks on Friday, with Ukraine and Syria expected to dominate the agenda.
Erdogan will be riding high on the diplomatic success of helping orchestrate the resumption of Ukrainian grain shipments across the Black Sea when he visits Sochi for his second talks with Putin in just over two weeks. Turkey wants to translate this success into truce talks in Istanbul between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
But there are tensions. Putin told the Turkish leader in Tehran last month that Russia remains opposed to any new offensive Turkey may be planning against Kurdish militants in northern Syria.
Updated at 07.24 BST
Inspectors begin checking the cargo ship in the Black Sea
A team of inspectors in Turkey began checking an empty cargo ship on Friday before it left to pick up grain from the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk under a deal to restart Ukraine’s grain exports, the Defense Ministry said Turkish
The ministry posted photographs on Twitter showing the inspection team boarding a ship to head to the Barbados-flagged general cargo ship Fulmar S, which was anchored in the Black Sea just north of the Bosphorus Strait from Istanbul.
The Joint Coordination Center team began the inspection of the empty Barbados-flagged FULMAR S, anchored north of Istanbul to buy grain at the Ukrainian port of Chernomorsk. pic.twitter.com/hItI1XYVsb
— TR Ministry of National Defense (@tcsavunma) August 5, 2022
Updated at 06.41 BST
Ukraine has asked that the deal easing Russia’s blockade on Black Sea grain exports be extended to include other products, such as metals, the Financial Times has reported.
“This agreement is about logistics, about the movement of ships through the Black Sea,” Ukrainian Deputy Economy Minister Taras Kachka told the FT. “What is the difference between grain and iron ore?”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has hit out at Amnesty International after accusing its forces of violating international law and endangering civilians in their defense against Russia’s invasion.
In a report on Thursday, Amnesty listed incidents in 19 cities and towns where Ukrainian forces appeared to have endangered civilians by setting up bases in residential areas, findings that Zelenskiy likened to victim blaming in his speech on afternoon
The rights group, he said, had sought to offer “amnesty (to) the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim.”
“There is no condition, even hypothetically, under which any Russian attack on Ukraine would be justified. The aggression against our state is unprovoked, invasive and terrorist.
If someone makes a report where the victim and the perpetrator are supposed to be the same in some way … then that cannot be tolerated.”
Relatives of prisoners of war captured by the Russians after the fall of Mariupol gathered in central Kyiv on Thursday to demand information about their husbands, fathers and children after a strike at a prison that houses prisoners of war in a separatist region of eastern Ukraine last week that killed and wounded dozens. .
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attack, while US officials believe Russia is seeking to fake evidence to make it appear that Ukrainian forces were responsible.
Relatives of prisoners of war are increasingly frustrated by the lack of information they receive about the fate of their loved ones. Since the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) acted as a guarantor of the security of the servicemen who left Azovstal in May, they are looking for answers from the committee.
“Our goal is to reach the Red Cross, to say that they are not fulfilling their duties. We entrusted them with the lives of our boys,” says Iryna Yermoshyna, the wife of a military policeman.
Olha, wife of a defender of the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, at Thursday’s demonstration in Kyiv. Photo: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Summary and welcome
Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These are the latest developments
- Ukraine has ceded some territory in the Donbas region to Russian forces, and Kyiv has acknowledged Russia’s “partial success” in recent days. The Ukrainian president,…