Ukrainian forces push deeper into Russian territory

Ukrainian forces push deeper into Russian territory

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is blaming Russian forces for starting a fire at a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. He shared this video online showing smoke coming out of one of the towers at the Russian controlled Zaporizhzhia plant. But Russia claims the fire erupted after a Ukrainian attack. Zelensky says Moscow is just using the nuclear plant to blackmail Ukraine and the rest of the world. He added that radiation levels in the area are normal. Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops are pushing deeper into Russia’s Kursk region after launching an incursion last week. The latest report by the Russian Defense Ministry indicates they have advanced up to 30km inside Russia. Joining us now is CNN’s Clare Sebastian live in London. Good to see you, Clare. So what is the latest on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia? Yeah. Rosemary, what we’re monitoring this morning. reports of evacuations happening in a second Russian border region, Belgorod. This is a region that, really up until this incursion by Ukraine into Kursk last week was really the epicenter of the cross-border attacks that we’ve seen drone attacks, even sort of sabotage groups in the past have crossed into Belgorod. The governor this morning saying that they are starting to evacuate people from one border district there. He’s talking about a disturbing morning enemy activity, on the border. We’re monitoring on official accounts, that Ukraine may have attacked there, though we cannot verify that. as of this point. Could this be another attempt to sort of stretch the Russian forces, draw them away, from other areas? That is unclear at this moment. Obviously, we’ve seen evacuations happen in the region over the weekend. Russian state media talked about at least 76,000 people, having to have been evacuated. They’ve they’ve had to set up temporary accommodation centers in eight other, different Russian regions. So, look, if disruption is part of the plan here, it certainly seems to be working. And look for the first few days of this incursion. We didn’t hear much from Ukraine at all about this. They were very, very silent. Then on Saturday, President Zelensky spoke directly about it for the first time, acknowledging that Ukrainian troops had gone into Russia. He then elaborated further, on Sunday, explaining why specifically they decided to attack the region. Take a listen. Only from the beginning of this summer and only from the Coast Guard region. Sumy region suffered almost 2000 strikes. Artillery, mortars, drones. We also monitor every missile strike. And each such strike deserves a fair response. So what he’s saying, essentially, is that they are, attacking in order to defend. They’re trying to hit the weapons before, they hit Ukraine. And as, we’ve been monitoring this attack over the past week, we’ve also been watching for a potential Russian response. We did, of course, have a very deadly attack on a supermarket in eastern Ukraine, last week. Then overnight into Sunday, a very large barrage of drones. in addition to some for, what Ukraine described as North Korean ballistic missiles. Two people were killed in the Kiev region. And then we saw on Sunday President Zelensky saying that came out, as you noted, and accused Russia of starting a fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant, in Europe. It’s been occupied by Russia since the first weeks of the war. It’s really sort of dropped out of the headlines recently. So this was certainly notable. Russia is accusing Ukraine of attacking the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has, observers at the plant, said that the fire, they had witnessed the fire at a cooling tower. No radiation, risk as of now, but worth noting, because when we saw successful Ukrainian counter offensives, in the autumn of 2022, that is when we started to see Russian nuclear threats also, escalate. So this is something to to certainly keep an eye on here, Rosemary. All right. Many thanks to Claire Sebastian with that live report from London.

Russian authorities are evacuating civilians from more areas along the Ukrainian border, a week into Kyiv’s surprise cross-border incursion into Russian territory. CNN’s Clare Sebastian reports. #CNN #News

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