Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency warned of fresh “provocations” on Saturday at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as both sides again accused the other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear facility.
FIGHTING
* Russia’s defence ministry claimed on Saturday to have taken full control of Pisky, a village on the outskirts of Donetsk, while Ukraine’s military command said later that “fierce fighting” continued in the village.
* Ukraine and Russia accused each other on Friday of risking disaster by shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant, occupied by Russian forces in a region expected to become one of the next big frontlines of the war.
* The two primary road bridges giving access to the pocket of Russian-occupied territory on the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region are now probably out of use for the purposes of substantial military resupply, British military intelligence said.
* Ukraine’s military said its artillery hit a Russian ammunition depot near a key bridge in the south on Friday and added it now had the ability to strike nearly all of Moscow’s supply lines in the occupied region. The military said the attack killed 11 Russian soldiers in the depot in Vesele, about80 miles (130 km) down the Dnipro river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
* Kharkiv region governor Oleh Synehubov said on national television that two Russian missiles hit the city of Kharkiv overnight. He said there were no casualties but that one missiledamaged a technical college while the other landed in are sidential area.
* Ukraine’s southern military command said late on Friday its air force had struck five Russian strongholds of weapons and equipment in the Bashtanskyi district in Mykolaiv region and in Beryslavskyi and Kherson districts in the Kherson region.
* Reuters could not confirm battlefield reports independently.
DIPLOMACY
* Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said for the war to end his country would seek the return of Crimea and the punishment of the Russian leaders who ordered the invasion in February, saying on Twitter: “Russia started war against Ukraine in 2014 with Crimea seizure. Obviously, it must end with Crimea liberation and legal punishment of ‘special military operation’ initiators”.
* Any possible seizure of Russian assets by the United States will completely destroy Moscow’s bilateral relations with Washington, TASS quoted the head of the North American Department at the Russian foreign ministry as saying.
* Russia has told the United States that diplomatic ties would be badly damaged and could even be broken off if Russia is declared a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the U.S. Senate, TASS cited a top foreign ministry official as saying on Friday.
* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy renewed his call on Friday for European Union states to ban visas for Russian nationals to keep the bloc from becoming a “supermarket” open to anyone with the means to enter.
ECONOMY
* Two more ships left from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, Turkey’s defence ministry said, bringing the total number of ships to depart the country under a U.N.-brokered deal to16.
* Securing a new $5 billion loan from the IMF would help assure Ukraine’s other creditors that its macro economic situation was under control, Zelenskiy’s chief economic adviser said on Friday.
* Global rating agencies S&P and Fitch lowered Ukraine’s foreign currency ratings on Friday to selective default and restricted default as they consider its debt restructuring as distressed.
