Status: 08/18/2022 04:57 am
At least six people have apparently been killed in a Russian attack on Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. Today, UN Secretary-General Guterres is traveling to Ukraine with Turkish President Erdogan for talks.
At least six people have been killed in a Russian attack on Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv. According to the authorities, 16 other people were injured, as the governor of the region, Oleg Sinegubov, announced in the messenger service Telegram. After the attack, a large fire broke out in a residential building.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that a residential building was “completely destroyed” in the attack. It is a “shameful and cynical attack on civilians” that is “completely unjustified” and shows the “powerlessness of the aggressor”.
Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, is just 40 kilometers from the Russian border and has been bombed regularly since Russia’s war of aggression began in late February. However, the Russian troops failed to capture the city. According to the authorities, hundreds of civilians have been killed in the Kharkiv region since the beginning of the war. Russian forces are currently concentrating their offensive on eastern and southern Ukraine.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
UN Secretary-General meets Zelenskyy and Erdogan
The attack came a day before UN Secretary-General António Guterres met Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv today. According to the UN, the main focus is on the implementation of an agreement on Ukrainian grain exports. Because of the Russian war of aggression, all of Ukraine’s grain exports from its Black Sea ports were blocked for months, contributing to a global food crisis.
Then in July, Russia and Ukraine signed a UN-Turkey-brokered deal to break the blockade. Among other things, they committed to creating safe corridors for cargo ships on the Black Sea. The first ship loaded with grain since the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the end of February left Ukraine on August 1. Guterres plans to visit the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa on Friday and Turkey on Saturday.
Zelenskyj demands the unconditional withdrawal of the Russians from nuclear power plants
The meeting with Guterres will also deal with the situation at the contested Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. During the night, Selenskyj again called for Russian troops to be withdrawn from the nuclear power plant. “This must be done without conditions and as soon as possible”.
Ukrainian diplomats, scientists and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are working to allow an expert commission to visit the nuclear power plant. “Only absolute transparency and a controlled situation in and around the nuclear power plant guarantee a return to normal nuclear safety for the Ukrainian state, the international community and the IAEA,” Zelenskyy said.
The situation in Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian troops, has been worrying the international community for weeks. Bullets keep falling on the power plant site, with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for the shelling.