Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is receiving power from the national grid once again, the UN's atomic agency (IAEA) said Saturday, after it was cut off from external power, raising the risk of an accident. Read about the day’s events as they unfolded on our liveblog. All times Paris time (GMT+2).
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22:15pm:Preliminary evidence indicates some of the dead were tortured
Dressed in white protective suits and wearing rubber gloves, Ukrainian emergency workers dug up more bodies on Saturday from a mass burial site near Izium that was recently recaptured from Russian forces.
Reporting from Izium, FRANCE 24's Gulliver Cragg says there was strong indication that the body that he watched being exhumed at the site had been tortured. Cragg stressed however that investigators say they can’t draw any final conclusions until autopsies have been performed and investigations have proceeded further.
4:53pm: Main power line back up at Zaporizhzhia plant: IAEA
One of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant's four main power lines has been repaired and is once again supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, according to the UN nuclear watchdog.
"With the main line's reconnection yesterday afternoon, the three back-up power lines are again being held in reserve," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. "The three other main external 750 kv (kilovolt) power lines that were lost earlier during the conflict remain down."
4:38pm: 'Bucha was not the exception'
Journalist Tetyana Ogarkova of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center says the gruesome scenes of investigators combing through a mass burial site near the eastern Ukrainian city of Izium reveals the systematic abuses conducted by Russian occupiers. “Bucha was not the exception,” she says, referring to the evidence of a massacre that was uncovered in the Kyiv suburb after Russian forces withdrew from the Kyiv region in March.
1:58pm: EU presidency wants war crimes tribunal over Izium burial sites
The Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, on Saturday called for the establishment of an international tribunal for war crimes after new mass burial sites were found in Ukraine.
The appeal follows the discovery of around 450 burial sites outside the formerly Russian-occupied city of Izium with most of the exhumed bodies showing signs of torture.
12:32pm: Ukraine receives $1.5 billion in new financial aid, says PM
Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal thanked the United States on Saturday for its support after Ukraine received a further $1.5 billion in international financial assistance.
He said the funds would be used to reimburse budget expenditure for pension payments and social assistance programmes.
11:57am: Ukrainian forces cross key river in Kharkiv
Ukrainian forces continue to cross the key Oskil River in the Kharkiv region as they try to press on in a counteroffensive targeting Russian-occupied territory, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
The Institute said in its Saturday report that satellite imagery it examined suggest that Ukrainian forces have crossed over to the east bank of the Oskil in Kupiansk, placing artillery there. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, had been a natural break in the newly emerged front lines since Ukraine launched its push about a week ago.
“Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River if Ukrainian forces choose to resume offensive operations,” the institute said.
11:32am: 'The stench of death permeates this forest'
As Ukrainian officials exhumed the remains of hundreds of people buried in a forest outside Izium, they found women, children, and civilian men among the dead.
Soldiers appeared to have been buried in mass burial sites, and civilians individually. Local undertakers said many were killed by bombs or rockets during Russia’s assault on Izium in March then buried here later. But some were discovered with their hands tied behind their backs or ropes around their necks.
FRANCE 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg sends this report from Izium. Warning: some images are disturbing.
9:22am: Bodies exhumed from burial site near Izium: 'People believe this will not be the only such site'
Bodies exhumed from a burial site near the eastern Ukrainian town of Izium "showed signs of violent death", a Ukrainian official said on Friday in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called proof of war crimes by Russian forces.
"So many people are involved in these exhumations and starting these investigations, perhaps also because they believe this will not be the only such site in the liberated territories," said FRANCE 24 correspondent Gulliver Cragg.
"When you go into the city centre of Izium it becomes all the easier to believe that a large number of people would have been killed in the bombing because people told us it was completely indiscriminate, with airplanes dropping bombs on the city centre."
8:42am: Russian forces establish defensive line as Ukrainian northeast offensive continues
Ukraine continues its offensive in the northeast while Russia has established a defensive line between the Oskil River and the town of Svatove, protecting one of its few main resupply routes from Russia's Belgorod region, British military intelligence said on Saturday.
"Russia likely sees maintaining control of this zone as important because it is transited by one of the few main resupply routes Russia still controls from the Belgorod region of Russia," the defence ministry said in a regular Twitter update.
"Russia will likely attempt to conduct a stubborn defence of this area, but it is unclear whether Russia's front line forces have sufficient reserves or adequate morale to withstand another concerted Ukrainian assault," it said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
