The destroyed building of the International Airport of Kherson in the village of Chornobaivka, outskirts of Kherson
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Vladimir Putin’s troops in Ukraine are being hampered by severe shortages of munitions and skilled personnel, British officials have said.
The Ministry of Defence said intense fire has been exchanged between Russian troops and Ukrainian forces around the Svatove sector in Luhansk Oblast in north-eastern Ukraine over the past week.
“As on other parts of the front, Russian forces continue to prioritise constructing defensive positions, almost certainly partially manned by poorly trained mobilised reservists,” said officials.
The sector is now a “more vulnerable operational flank of the Russian force,” and its leaders will likely see retaining control of it as a “political priority”, the MoD said in an intelligence update.
“However, commanders are likely struggling with the military realities of maintaining a credible defence, while also attempting to resource offensive operations further south in Donetsk,” it said.
“Both Russian defensive and offensive capability continues to be hampered by severe shortages of munitions and skilled personnel.”
It comes as the UN nuclear watchdog warned that whoever fired artillery at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant at the weekend was “playing with fire”.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said more than a dozen blasts shook the Russian-occupied nuclear plant late on Saturday and on Sunday.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi said the attacks were extremely disturbing and completely unacceptable.
“Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you're playing with fire!”, Mr Grossi said in a statement.
Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for the shelling of the facility, as they have done repeatedly in recent months.
Citing information provided by plant management, an IAEA team on the ground said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment, but none of them critical for nuclear safety and security.
The team plans to conduct an assessment on Monday, Mr Grossi said, but Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom said there would be curbs on what the team could inspect.
“If they want to inspect a facility that has nothing to do with nuclear safety, access will be denied," Renat Karchaa, an adviser to Rosenergoatom's CEO, told the Tass news agency.
Repeated shelling of the plant has raised concern about a grave accident only 300 miles from the site of the world's worst nuclear accident in Chernobyl in 1986.
