During televised comments, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said operations in Ukraine were going according to plan despite international criticism over the targeting of highly populated residential areas. A senior U.S. defense official said more than 90% of the combat power Russia built up along Ukraine’s borders ahead of its invasion is now committed inside Ukraine.
In a video address overnight Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of using “nuclear terror” after officials said Russian shelling hit a nuclear power plant, sparking a fire at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the city of Enerhodar.
“No country has ever shot at nuclear blocks except for Russia,” Zelensky said. “First time ever. For the first time ever in our history, in the history of human kind, the terrorist country has reverted to nuclear terror.”
Earlier Thursday, Russia claimed to take its first major city, Kherson, and the country’s forces also surrounded Mariupol while heavy strikes continue to target Kharkiv and just outside the capital, Kyiv. In the northern city of Chernihiv, missiles slammed into residential neighborhoods, killing at least 33 people, according to emergency services.
“The use of weapons with wide-area effects in populated urban areas risks being inherently indiscriminate,” U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said.
The United Nations Human Rights Council said more than a million people have fled Ukraine in the week since the invasion began and a million more are displaced internally.
After a second round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Belarus, both sides said they’ve reached an agreement to create safe civilian evacuation corridors.
The Biden administration asked Congress to approve $10 billion in new funding for military and humanitarian aid in Ukraine, and they want it approved next week. The administration also announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs — and their families — which include prohibiting travel to the U.S.
