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Summary
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a statement marking Ukraine’s Aviation Day, in which he pledged that Kyiv’s troops would “destroy the occupiers’ potential step by step”. The Ukrainian president vowed that the Russian “invaders will die like dew on the sun”.
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Russia has probably increased the intensity of its attacks in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region over the past five days, according to British intelligence. Pro-Russia separatists have most likely made progress towards the centre of Pisky village, near Donetsk airport, but Russian forces overall have secured few territorial gains, the latest report from the UK Ministry of Defence says.
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Russia has blocked an agreement at the UN aimed at bolstering the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The failure to agree to a joint statement, due to Moscow’s objection to a clause about control over the Zaporizhzhia plant, is the latest blow to hopes of maintaining an arms control regime and keeping a lid on a rekindled arms race.
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Ukrainian sailors will be allowed to leave the country for work, Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers has said. The prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said men of draft age employed as crew members would be allowed to leave the country so long as they had permission from their local conscription offices to cross the border.
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Britain’s defence ministry has said it is giving six underwater drones to Ukraine to help clear its coastline of mines and make grain shipments safer. In addition, dozens of Ukrainian navy personnel will be taught to use the drones over the coming months, the ministry said.
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Kazakhstan, a neighbour and ally of Russia, has suspended all arms exports for a year, its government said, amid the conflict in Ukraine and western sanctions against Moscow.
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Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed to protect the airspace of their Nato ally Slovakia, as it upgrades its air force from legacy Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters to a new batch of F-16 jets from the US.
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton and these are the latest developments as it approaches 9.20am in Kyiv on this Sunday 28 August 2022.
Key events
Around 46,750 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war with Ukraine, the country’s foreign ministry said on in an update posted on Twitter.
The update added that Russia has also lost 3,171 vehicles and fuel tanks, 234 aircraft and 1,942 tanks, since the start of the conflict in February this year.
Russia does not give a running total of troop losses or equipment destroyed or taken. The Ukrainian claims could not be independently verified.
Rustem Umerov, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, thanked the UK for supplying the country with underwater drones.
A press release on Saturday from the Ministry of Defence said:
Six autonomous minehunting vehicles will be sent to the country to help detect Russian mines in the waters off its coast. Three of these will be provided from UK stocks, with a further three to be purchased from industry.
The lightweight autonomous vehicle is designed for use in shallow coastal environments, operating effectively at depths of up to 100m to detect, locate and identify mines using an array of sensors so the Ukrainian Navy can destroy them.
Dozens of Ukrainian Navy personnel will be taught to use the drones over the coming months, with the first tranche having already begun their training.
🇬🇧🤝🇺🇦 Great Britain will provide Ukraine with underwater drones for demining the coastline and is already training the military. This will help #Ukraine make its waters safe and improve grain exports. Thank you!
— Rustem Umerov (@rustem_umerov) August 28, 2022
Dan Sabbagh reports for us from Kramatorsk:
A Russian missile slammed into Valentina’s garden on a residential street in Kramatorsk at about 6pm on a warm August evening, landing among the squash and cabbages to the rear of the pensioner’s house, smashing windows, destroying the roof, scattering glass, tiles, bricks and rubble everywhere.
Valentina, 75, was sitting outside under a grapevine, just about far enough from the blast to escape only with cuts and bruises, some all too visible on a visit to her ruined home five days later. But while the wounds will heal, the trauma will linger.
“All my life I worked hard. Why? Why? What did I do?” Valentina cried as she surveyed the wreckage, with no apparent prospect of help with the necessary clear-up, too shocked to know what to do next. Perhaps it was time to relocate to relative safety elsewhere in Ukraine? “How can I go? I have nothing to go with,” she asked.
Read more: ‘We were born here’: Ukrainians in frontline towns face painful choice
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has signed a decree allowing Ukrainian passport holders who have entered Russia since Moscow’s offensive to live and work in the country indefinitely.
Until now, Ukrainians could stay in Russia only for a maximum of 90 days within a 180-day period. To stay longer or to work, special authorisation or a work permit was required.
Agence France-Presse reports that the new measure allows Ukrainian citizens and people from Ukraine’s separatist eastern regions that Russia recognises as independent to work in Russia without a work permit and to live in the country “without a time limit”, according to the temporary decree published on Saturday.
The decree also forbids the deportation of Ukrainian citizens, except for those released from prison or those deemed to pose a threat to Russia’s security.
Dell Technologies says it has ceased all Russian operations after closing its offices in mid-August, the latest in a growing list of western firms to exit Russia.
Reuters reports that the US computer firm – a key supplier of servers in Russia – has joined others in curtailing operations since Moscow’s February invasion of Ukraine.
Dell suspended sales in Ukraine and Russia in February, saying it would monitor the situation to determine next steps.
Dell spokesperson Mike Siemienas said on Saturday:
In mid-August, we closed our offices and ceased all Russian operations.
Russia’s industry ministry said on Friday that many of the researchers and engineers working for Dell in Russia had already been offered new jobs, after media reports saying the company was making a full exit.
Miranda Bryant and Mark Townsend report:
A “shocking” 50,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK could be made homeless next year, the government has been warned, but ministers are refusing to offer a fresh package of support to offset the impending crisis.
As the cost of living crisis bites and with no end in sight to the war with Russia, fears are mounting that the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme will unravel next month when refugees’ initial six-month placements with hosts end without alternative accommodation in place.
Although Boris Johnson has framed the UK’s response to Russia’s invasion as a principled triumph, a number of organisations warn that a key response of his government to the conflict’s refugee crisis could prompt a “disastrous rise in homelessness”.
Read more: 50,000 Ukrainian refugees in UK facing homelessness ‘disaster’ next year
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.
‘Welcome to the refugee lifestyle,’ says Eno Enyieokpon, a fashion designer who is re-establishing his brand, Enno, in Budapest having left everything behind in Kyiv.
Identifying as a black Ukrainian, Eno says most of the ideas that have changed his life as a designer have come from tough times in Ukraine.
As he waits to bring his machines from Kyiv, and works on new shows while navigating the unfamiliar Hungarian system, he is optimistic about the future, telling other Ukrainian refugees: ‘If we had the will to withstand the Russians we also have the willpower to move and forge ahead in life.’
Russia has lost ‘tens of thousands’ of troops and it ‘remains unclear’ how it will recruit more, says MoD
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.
This is because Russia has lost tens of thousands of troops; very few new contract servicemen are being recruited; and conscripts are technically not obliged to serve outside of Russian territory.
Two dead after Russian assault on Bakhmut
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.
We have not been able to independently verify these battlefield reports.
Millions of tonnes of food from past harvests in Ukraine still need to be cleared to make room in silos for the next one, the United Nations coordinator for the grains agreement says.
More than 1m tonnes of grains and other foods have been exported under the grains deal brokered by Turkey and the UN, Reuters reports.
Amir Abdulla, the UN coordinator for the Black Sea grain initiative, said on Saturday that the deal “has started creating some space but much more grain needs to shift to make space for the new harvest”.
Ukrainian and Russian forces continue to accuse each other of shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with Ukraine saying Russian forces fired on areas just across the river from the complex and Russia saying Ukrainian shells hit a building where nuclear fuel is stored.
The claims on Saturday came amid continuing concerns about the potential for a radiation leak at Europe’s largest nuclear facility, Associated Press reports.
The governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said Russian Grad missiles and artillery shells hit the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, each 10km (six miles) across the Dnieper River from the plant in south-eastern Ukraine.
A Russian defence ministry spokesperson, Igor Konashenkov, said Ukrainian forces had fired on the plant from Marhanets. Seventeen Ukrainian shells hit the plant over the past day, he said, with four striking the roof of a building that stored nuclear fuel.
Summary
-
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.
-
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has issued a statement marking Ukraine’s Aviation Day, in which he pledged that Kyiv’s troops would “destroy the occupiers’ potential step by step”. The Ukrainian president vowed that the Russian “invaders will die like dew on the sun”.
-
Russia has probably increased the intensity of its attacks in the Donetsk area of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region over the past five days, according to British intelligence. Pro-Russia separatists have most likely made progress towards the centre of Pisky village, near Donetsk airport, but Russian forces overall have secured few territorial gains, the latest report from the UK Ministry of Defence says.
-
Russia has blocked an agreement at the UN aimed at bolstering the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The failure to agree to a joint statement, due to Moscow’s objection to a clause about control over the Zaporizhzhia plant, is the latest blow to hopes of maintaining an arms control regime and keeping a lid on a rekindled arms race.
-
Ukrainian sailors will be allowed to leave the country for work, Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers has said. The prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said men of draft age employed as crew members would be allowed to leave the country so long as they had permission from their local conscription offices to cross the border.
-
Britain’s defence ministry has said it is giving six underwater drones to Ukraine to help clear its coastline of mines and make grain shipments safer. In addition, dozens of Ukrainian navy personnel will be taught to use the drones over the coming months, the ministry said.
-
Kazakhstan, a neighbour and ally of Russia, has suspended all arms exports for a year, its government said, amid the conflict in Ukraine and western sanctions against Moscow.
-
Poland and the Czech Republic have agreed to protect the airspace of their Nato ally Slovakia, as it upgrades its air force from legacy Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters to a new batch of F-16 jets from the US.
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton and these are the latest developments as it approaches 9.20am in Kyiv on this Sunday 28 August 2022.
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