Yesterday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Russian armed forces had destroyed a plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro that produces parts for Tochka-U ballistic missiles. According to the Reuters news agency, Russian forces also shot down three Ukrainian warplanes and two helicopters.
The Ministry of Defense also reported that its Air Force almost completely destroyed the 115th mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the northern direction in the Donbass in two days, the loss of which amounted to more than 600 personnel.
In Kyiv, the head of the Ukrainian state company Energoatom, which operates nuclear power plants, said on Friday that the Russian army had placed missile launchers at the Russian-controlled Zaporozhye (south) nuclear power plant site since early March, and that it had been using them on purpose. for shelling the Nikopol area.
“Russian invaders have installed rocket launchers on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and are bombing the Nikopol region from there,” Energoatom head Petr Kotin said on Telegram after a TV interview with the Ukrainian TV channel United News.
“The situation (at the power plant) is very tense, the tension is growing day by day. The occupiers bring their equipment there, including missile systems, which they previously used in the bombardment.”
He indicated that there were up to 500 Russian military personnel on the territory of the station, stressing that they “control the territory.”
Kotin said that “heavy equipment (tanks and armored vehicles) … and trucks full of weapons and explosives are still parked on the station”, believing that there was “not enough pressure” to force them to leave, criticizing in particular the International Agency for atomic energy.
He believed that the International Atomic Energy Agency was “playing a political game that swings between Russia and Ukraine.”
“The International Atomic Energy Agency has a lot of employees from Russia,” he said, adding that their number is about 100 people. “Even the first deputy general director of the agency, Rafael Grossi, is (originally) from Russia,” he added. . He believed that this reason explained their “low profile”.
