Steph Deschamps / August 8, 2022
While Volodymyr Zelensky has once again denounced Russian nuclear terrorism, four additional ships loaded with grain were able to leave southern Ukraine on Sunday.
As the site of Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, was targeted for the second time in just over 24 hours this weekend, four more cargo ships loaded with grain, crucial to global food security, left Ukrainian ports. As in the wake of Friday's previous bombing of these facilities in southern Ukraine, which fell to Russian soldiers in early March, the two sides accused each other on Sunday of attacking them.
The occupation authorities in the town of Energodar, where the Zaporizhia power plant is located, said that the Ukrainian army fired a cluster munition with a multiple Hurricane rocket launcher on Saturday night. The shrapnel and the engine of the rocket fell 400 meters from a reactor in operation, they continued, adding that this strike had damaged administrative buildings and hit an area of storage of spent nuclear fuel. Russian nuclear terrorism requires a stronger response from the international community, reacted Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky.
As part of regular rotations to supply agricultural markets begun this week under agreements recently signed in Istanbul by the warring parties, four more ships loaded with grain left southern Ukraine on Sunday. The convoy, the second since Friday, has just left the ports of Odessa and Chornomorsk with about 170,000 tons of agriculture-related goods, Ukraine's infrastructure ministry said.