Zelenskiy urges EU to prepare fresh sanctions; Russia hits multiple residential targets in Mykolaiv
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pushed the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to prepare a fresh package of sanctions, including a ban on issuing visas to Russian citizens.
Russian forces have hit multiple residential targets in Mykolaiv overnight, according to its governor, Vitaliy Kim. He said homes were damaged, as well as three hospitals, two education facilities, a hotel and a museum. Pictures of the damage are coming through already.
A video showing Russian multiple-launch rocket systems firing from the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been published by the Insider. The footage, taken overnight on Friday into early Saturday morning, shows the missile launchers close to a power unit.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, will visit Germany on Sunday – the first high-level Ukrainian official to visit the country in months. The trip is a sign of eased tensions after a rocky patch between Kyiv and Berlin.
Zelenskiy said Russia is using “poverty and political chaos” to attack the lives of all Europeans. In his evening address late on Saturday, the presidentsaid that by stopping the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, Russia wanted to “destroy the normal life of every European”.
Russian forces are suffering from “morale and discipline issues” in addition to combat fatigue and high casualties, the UK Ministry of Defence has said. Troops’ main grievances probably continued to be around pay, including the high chance that “sizeable combat bonuses” were not being paid, the latest British intelligence update said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been disconnected from its last remaining main power line to the grid and is relying on a reserve line, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. Previously, there had been reports the plant in south-eastern Ukraine had been knocked offline in the early hours of Saturday amid sustained shelling that destroyed a key power line, according to local Russian-backed authorities.
Sweden has said it would provide liquidity guarantees to Nordic and Baltic energy companies worth “billions of dollars” in an effort to prevent a financial crisis sparked by Europe’s energy crunch.
The Russian energy company Gazprom has said Siemens Energy is ready to help repair broken equipment for the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, but claimed there was nowhere available for them to carry out the work.
The European Union expects Russia to respect existing energy contracts but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so, the economic commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told Vladimir Putin that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, according to his office.
Continue reading...