“I saw clear indications of military preparations in the area when I visited the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant just over three weeks ago,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Friday. “Since then, our experts at the site have frequently reported about hearing detonations, at times suggesting intense shelling not far from the site.”IAEA monitors have been deployed to the Russian-occupied facility as part of Grossi’s bid to avoid a catastrophe at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Ukrainian forces are preparing for a long-awaited counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine after months of fending off Russian attacks around Bakhmut. The Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, a U.S.-led forum of 46 countries that meets regularly at Ramstein Air Base, assembled on Friday for what might be the last meeting before that campaign begins.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team has acknowledged feeling pressure to deliver an effective campaign. “We are in a decisive moment now,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Sybiha told the Financial Times. “We need to show successes.”