2023-06-10 05:01:00
President Vladimir Putin declared on Friday that Russia will start deploying nuclear warheads in Belarus in July. He said it contradicting his Belarusian counterpart and ally Alexander Lukashenko, who had announced in May that the transfer of these weapons had already begun.
In a conversation Putin had with Lukashenko in Sochi — southwestern Russia — the Russian president told him: “As you know, the conditioning of the facilities (for nuclear weapons) will end on July 7 or 8, and we will immediately take the measures related to the deployment of the weapons in question on your territory.” And he added that “everything is going according to plan.”
The date seems designed to be a few days ahead of the NATO summit scheduled for July 11 and 12 in Lithuania, a country bordering Belarus. The meeting will discuss Ukraine’s candidacy to join the military alliance. The new announcement of Russian weapons in Belarus is a clear warning in response to NATO.
The Russian bombs in Belarus would be so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons that can cause immense damage, but their radius of destruction is less than that of “strategic” nuclear weapons. At the beginning of April, Russia had already reported that it had begun to train the Belarusian military in the use of “tactical” nuclear weapons. Putin’s announcement generated a barrage of criticism from the international community, and particularly from the West, even though NATO and the US have a global deployment of their weapons of mass destruction.
The “counteroffensive” debate
On the same Friday, Putin declared that Ukraine’s announced counter-offensive to recover the territories occupied by Moscow has already begun, but it did not achieve “its objectives.” “We can fully affirm that this offensive has started,” Putin declared in a video broadcast by Telegram. “Ukrainian troops did not achieve their goal on any of the battlefields.” He added: “All counteroffensive efforts so far have failed, but the kyiv regime still has offensive potential.”
The United States announced for its part that it will provide Ukraine with a new batch of military aid for 2.1 billion dollars, including ammunition for Patriot air defense systems, artillery shells, drones and laser-guided rockets.
On the battle fronts the fight continues, fierce. The Russian authorities reported intense fighting in the Zaporizhia region — southern Ukraine — where they would have repelled several attacks. “During the last 24 hours, the Ukrainian forces continued their attempts to carry out offensives in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. Ukrainian authorities and the military are keeping a low profile and have not commented on Russia’s claims.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei ShoiguI declare that “Today (Thursday) the enemy tried to break through to our defense with (…) up to 1,500 men and 150 armored vehicles,” Shoigu said. “The enemy was blocked and is falling back with heavy losses,” he added. According to Shoigu, after a two-hour battle in Zaporizhia, Ukrainian forces lost 30 tanks, 11 infantry fighting vehicles and up to 350 men. This information could not be verified with an independent source.
drone attack
According to the American Institute for the Study of War, the Ukrainian counteroffensive has already begun, and it would not be “a single major operation”, but a series of coordinated actions. In recent weeks, Ukraine has put Russian positions along the front line, from south to east, to the test, a strategy of sowing uncertainty about where a decisive attack would come from.
Inside Russian territory, in the city of Voronezh, 200 km from the border with Ukraine, three people were injured this Friday when a drone crashed into a residential building, local authorities said.
the destroyed dam
In the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv, the floods caused since Tuesday by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River have left at least 13 dead: eight in Russian-controlled areas and five in Ukrainian ones, where there are 13 missing.
“According to forecasts, the rising waters can still last 10 days,” assured Vladimir Saldo, head of the part occupied by Moscow in the region, appointed by Russia. Tatiana Yoenko, a 45-year-old woman living in Chornobaivka, said that “the water has already entered the houses and the streets.” “Every two hours I go out to see if the water is still rising,” she said.
In the city of Kherson, the water level began to drop “for the first time,” according to Laura Musiyan of the local meteorological center. Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky, who visited the flooded area on Thursday, said Friday that “for hundreds of thousands of people in numerous cities and towns, access to drinking water is seriously compromised.”
kyiv and Moscow blame each other for the destruction of the dam. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, estimated on Friday that “everything seems to indicate” that the Russians destroyed the facility. The Norwegian seismology institute Norsar reported that it detected an “explosion” coming from the Ukrainian region where the Kajovka dam is located at the time of its destruction, without settling the debate.
Ukraine and Russia accused each other on Thursday of shelling beleaguered areas in the Jershon region, where thousands of civilians are being evacuated after floods. The Ukrainians accused the Russian army of shelling Kherson during the rescue operations. Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky described rescuers working “under Russian fire” as “heroic” in a message posted on social media after visiting the region, where more than 600 km2 of territory is under water.
No “imminent” nuclear risk
The hydroelectric power plant is in the city of Nova Kakhovka, in the Kherson region — today occupied by Russia — and its waters are used to cool the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which is upriver, under Russian control. When the dam is destroyed, the level of these waters is falling.
Germán Galushchenko –Minister of Energy of Ukraine– affirmed that the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant does not present “any imminent risk for now”, but that it was necessary to “monitor the situation”. After evaluation, it was found that the water pumping operation “should be able to continue even if the level dropped below 12.7 meters,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement. Shortly before, the head of the Ukrainian operator Ukrhydroenergo, Igor Syrota, had warned that the dam’s water reserves were no longer enough to cool the reactors at the plant, the largest in Europe. When the dam’s water can no longer be used, the plant will be able to use “a large retention pool located nearby, as well as smaller reservoirs and on-site wells, which will be able to provide cooling water for several months,” the government detailed. IAEA.
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