Ukrainian counteroffensive: Worries over nuclear power plant

By Stefan J. Bos [ Audio Embed Listen to Stefan Bos' report] A Russian ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Makiivka is apparently hit by at least two U.S.-made missiles fired by Ukraine's military. Dramatic footage shows a massive fireball in the Russian-held Donetsk region over this city. It's part of Ukraine's counter-offensive to force Russian troops to withdraw from these and other Ukrainian territories. Moscow says dozens of people, including children, were injured in the Ukrainian attack. It came a day after inside Russia, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin claimed Ukraine launched a drone attack on the Russian capital and its region. Russia's Foreign Ministry said none of the five drones targeting the Moscow area caused injuries or damage, as four were shot down by air defenses and the other one lost control and crashed. Elsewhere, governors announced that Russia's Kursk and Belgorod regions came under fire from Ukrainian forces across the border in the early hours of Wednesday, but no casualties were reported. Ukraine was also hit by Russian missiles, including in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, where a missile struck a carpark of a residential building in Pervomaisky. Authorities said dozens of people, including children, were injured in Tuesday's attack. Rocket attack Separately, an overnight Russian rocket attack on Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region reportedly damaged residential buildings and a medical facility. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned that Russia may plan to "simulate an attack" on Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Citing intelligence sources, he said Russian forces in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant they occupy placed "objects resembling explosives" on the roofs of buildings at the site. On Tuesday, he briefed the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on what he called Russia's "dangerous provocations." He added that both men agreed to cooperate closely with the United Nations nuclear watchdog IAEA. News of their talks came as a funeral service took place in Kyiv for the celebrated writer Victoria Amelina. The Ukrainian novelist, poet, and public intellectual died from injuries sustained when a Russian missile attack struck a pizza restaurant in the eastern town of Kramatorsk last week, killing 12 people, including children. Despite the mounting death toll, clashes continue along the frontlines in this devastating war. But critical journalists trying to report on Moscow's actions in Ukraine or on its warring cheerleader, the president of the Russian province of Chechnya, face dangers. On Tuesday, Yelena Milashina, the prominent journalist for Russia's independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, was brutally beaten in Chechnya. She was moved to a hospital in Moscow.

Ukrainian counteroffensive: Worries over nuclear power plant

More upcoming events: