Summary
The EU is set to suspend its visa travel agreement with Russia this week, The Financial Times reports. The plan to freeze a 2007 deal will make it harder and more expensive for Russians to get Schengen-area documents, the FT reports. It comes after some eastern member states threatened to unilaterally close their borders to Russian tourists, with other countries calling for collective action to stop ordinary Russians from travelling to the EU on tourist visas. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has previously called for a complete ban.`
Russia claims it has hit workshops at the Motor Sich factory in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine. The facility is where helicopters for the Ukrainian air force are being repaired, the defence ministry said. But Ukrainian officials later said the hit resulted significant civilian damages: damaging nine multi-story buildings and 40 private homes.
A Russian missile has struck military infrastructure in Rivne oblast in northern Ukraine. Reports so far are that there were no casualties, and that the missiles came from just over the border from Belarus.
The United States today called out Russia’s “cynical obstructionism” after Moscow remained the sole holdout in blocking the adoption of a joint declaration on nuclear non-proliferation following lengthy international negotiations at the United Nations. The 191 signatories review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty every five years, which aims to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and promote cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy. But on Friday, Russia prevented the declaration’s adoption, saying it took issue with “political” aspects of the text.
It is unclear if Russia will try to fill its increase in armed forces members by recruiting more volunteer “contract” soldiers or by lifting annual targets for conscriptions, British intelligence says. President Vladimir Putin signed a decree this week to increase the size of the armed forces from 1.9 million to 2.04 million in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its sixth month. The latest UK Ministry of Defence briefing says that under the Russian legislation now in place, the decree is unlikely to make “substantive progress” towards increasing Russia’s combat power.
Two people were killed in Russian firing on Bakhmut, the governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said on Saturday. The eastern city is a significant target for Russian and separatist forces seeking to take control of the parts of Donetsk they don’t hold. Associated Press also reported local government officials as saying that in the Black Sea region of Mykolaiv, one person was killed and another wounded in Russian firing.
On the opposite shore from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the towns of Nikopol and Marhanets were hit by shells on Saturday afternoon and evening, Nikopol’s mayor, Yevhen Yevtushenko, said on Telegram.
Concern persists about the potential for a radiation leak at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukraine’s state energy operator has warned there are “risks of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances” at the Russian-occupied plant. Authorities were distributing iodine tablets to residents who live near the plant in case of radiation exposure.
Russia and Ukraine traded fresh accusations of each other shelling the area around the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, on Saturday. Moscow’s troops have “repeatedly shelled” the site of the plant over the past day, the Ukrainian state nuclear company, Energoatom, said. Russia’s defence ministry has claimed Ukraine’s troops “shelled the territory of the station three times” in the past day.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is trying to negotiate access to the plant for an urgent inspection mission “to help stabilise the nuclear safety and security situation there”. Energoatom head Petro Kotin told the Guardian a visit could come before the end of the month, but the Ukrainian energy minister, Lana Zerkal, told a local radio station she was not convinced Russia was negotiating in good faith.
Zelenskiy meets with defence, security sector
Volodymyr Zelenskiy met today with representatives of his defence and security sector, his office said.
The secret meeting was attended by the heads of the armed forces, intelligence agencies, the ministry of defence, the ministry of internal affairs, the Ukrainian security service as well as other defence forces.
They discussed the situation at the front and the needs of the Ukrainian forces.
