Russia-Ukraine Crisis/Zaporizhzhia Plant

Shotlist

FILE: Moscow, Russia – April 20, 2022 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
1. Kremlin, bridge

FILE: Moscow, Russia – March 29, 2018 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
2. Facade of Russian Defense Ministry building

FILE: Moscow, Russia – Dec 2015 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
3. Russian national flag on building

Location Unknown – Released on Aug 6, 2022 (Courtesy of Russian Defense Ministry – No access Chinese mainland)
4. Various of fighter flying in air, pilots
5. Gunsight of target being aimed
6. Aerial shots of targets being attacked
7. Various of multi-barrel artilleries firing
8. Various of fighter flying in air, pilot
9. Gunsight of missile flying in air
10. Missile being launched
11. Various of soldier pressing button
12. Missile being launched
13. Various of screen showing missile flying in air
14. Contrail of missile

FILE: Kiev, Ukraine – May 18, 2017 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
15. Various of cityscape

FILE: Kiev, Ukraine – 2018 (CCTV – No access Chinese mainland)
16. Ukrainian parliament building

Storyline

Russia and Ukraine on Saturday issued separate statements accusing each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and damaging infrastructures in the plant, which poses serious safety risks.

Both sides have asked the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take actions to ensure the safe operation of the nuclear power plant.

The largest of its kind in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia plant consists of six pressurized water reactors and stores radioactive waste. The plant was captured by Russia in March.

Ukraine’s state nuclear agency, Enerhoatom, said in its statement on Saturday that the Russian armed forces shelled the nuclear power plant to damage its infrastructures and disconnect the plant with Ukraine’s electricity network, so as to create power shortage in south Ukraine.

Ukraine has called on the UN, the IAEA and other international institutions to work together to pressure Russia, forcing the country to withdraw its armed forces from the Zaporizhzhia plant and surrounding areas.

Russian Defense Ministry said in its statement on Saturday night that the Ukrainian side shelled the power plant during the shift of employees, causing damage to part of the plant’s infrastructures and cutting off water and power supply for a large number of local residents.

Thanks to effective operations by the Russian armed forces, the key infrastructures of the nuclear power plant were not damaged, the statement said.

The ministry also warned that if an accident happens at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, it will be a global man-made disaster, and the scale of its radioactive contamination will be much larger than those of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents.

On the battlefield, as a result of high-precision strike by the Russian Aerospace Forces against a stronghold of the Foreign Legion formation, more than 80 foreign mercenaries and 11 pieces of special equipment had been destroyed in the Dnepropetrovsk Region, said Russian Defense Ministry in its daily report on Saturday.

During counter-battery warfare, one Ukrainian platoon of Olkha and U.S.-made HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems were destroyed in the Kharkov Region.

Meanwhile, in the Kherson Region, a temporary deployment point and multiple combat positions of the Ukrainian armed forces had been hit by the Russian Aerospace Forces, the ministry said.

Ukrainian armed forces reported Saturday that Russian armed forces conducted offensive operations in six directions in east Donetsk but were repulsed and retreated.