Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the military for its gains in the east, saying in a videotaped address overnight that Ukrainian troops had recaptured more than 30 settlements in the Kharkiv region since the start of a counteroffensive there this week. “We are gradually taking control of more settlements, returning the Ukrainian flag and protection for our people.” Zelensky said. Ukraine’s military also said it launched new attacks on Russian bridges used to bring supplies across the Dnieper River to Kherson, one of the largest Russian-held cities, and the surrounding area. Ukrainian artillery and rockets have rendered all regular river bridges useless, the army’s southern command said. Concerns have grown over Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which was operating in emergency mode on Friday for a fifth day in a row because of the war. This prompted the head of the UN nuclear watchdog to call for an immediate safety zone around the plant to prevent a nuclear accident. The six-reactor Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant came under the control of Russian forces early in the war, but is operated by Ukrainian personnel. The plant and surrounding areas have been repeatedly hit by shelling that Russia and Ukraine blame each other for. The last power line connecting the plant to the Ukrainian electricity grid was cut on Monday, leaving the plant without an outside source of electricity. It receives power for its own safety systems from the only reactor—out of six in total—that remains operational. In other advances, the Ukrainian military said it had taken control of the village of Volokhiv Yar in the Kharkiv region and aimed to advance on the strategic city of Kupiansk, which would cut off Russian forces from key supply routes. Pro-Russian authorities in the Kupiansk region announced that civilians were being evacuated towards the Russian-controlled region of Luhansk. “The initial signs are positive and we see Ukraine making real, demonstrable progress in a deliberate way,” US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said in Brussels, a day after visiting Kyiv. “But this is likely to continue for some considerable time,” he said. “There are a huge number of Russian forces in Ukraine and unfortunately, tragically, horribly, President (Vladimir) Putin has shown that he’s going to throw a lot of people into it at a huge cost to Russia.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who met with Blinken, said the war was “entering a critical phase”. The gains “are modest and only the first successes of the Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive, but they are significant both in terms of taking the military initiative and boosting the morale of Ukrainian soldiers,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military analyst at the Razumkov Center in The Kyiv, he told the Associated Press. Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator, said on Friday that repairs to external power lines at the Zaporizhzhia plant were impossible because of the shelling and that operating the plant on what it called an “island” posed a “risk of violating radioactivity standards and fire safety. .” “Only the withdrawal of the Russians from the plant and the creation of a security zone around it can normalize the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Only then will the world be able to breathe,” Petro Kotin, head of Energoatom, told Ukrainian television. Earlier, Kotin told The Associated Press that the plant’s only active reactor “could shut down completely” at any time, and as a result, the only power source would be a diesel generator. There are 20 generators on site and enough diesel fuel for 10 days. After that, about 200 tons of diesel fuel would be needed daily for the generators, which he said is “impossible” to obtain while the plant is occupied by Russian forces. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Friday that there was little chance of restoring reliable power lines away from the plant. “This is an unsustainable situation and it is becoming more and more precarious,” Grossi said, calling for an “immediate cessation of all shelling in the entire region” and the creation of a nuclear safety and protection zone. “This is the only way to ensure that we do not face a nuclear accident,” he said. Fighting continued on Friday in other parts of Ukraine. Russian planes bombed the hospital in the town of Velika Pysarivka, on the border with Russia, said Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of the Sumy region. He said the building was destroyed and there were an unknown number of casualties. In the eastern Donetsk region – one of two that Russia declared sovereign states at the start of the war – eight people were killed in the city of Bakhmut in the last day and the city has been without water and electricity for a fourth straight day, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said . Four people were killed in shelling in the Kharkiv region, two of them in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. The shelling of the city continued on Friday afternoon, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said, injuring 10 people, including three children. Ukraine this week claimed to have regained control of more than 20 settlements in the Kharkiv region, including the small town of Balakliya. Posts on social media showed crying, smiling residents of Balaklia hugging Ukrainian soldiers. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday declined to comment on the alleged recapture of Balaklia, redirecting all such questions to the Russian Defense Ministry. But Vitaly Gadchev, the Russian-based official in the Kharkiv region, confirmed on Friday that “Balaklia, in fact, is not under our control”. Gadchev said “fierce fighting” continued in the city. Helicopters and fighter jets poured into the rolling plains of the Donetsk region, with the planes headed for Izio, near where Ukrainian forces are launching a counterattack in the Kharkiv region. The jets shot out flares and black smoke billowed in the distance. — Associated Press writer Elena Bekatoros in Donetsk region, Ukraine, and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.
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