Russia And Ukraine Are Fighting Over Fighting Near A Nuclear Facility

The fire broke out late Thursday at the ammunition storage building near the village of Timonovo in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border. About 1,100 people live in Timonovo and Soloti, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border. No one was injured, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The fire came days after another ammunition depot exploded on the Crimean peninsula, a Russian-held territory on the Black Sea annexed by Moscow in 2014. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air base in Crimea, demonstrating both Russian vulnerability and Ukrainian ability to strike deep behind enemy lines. Ukrainian authorities have not publicly claimed responsibility. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines following the Crimea blasts, which Russia blamed on “sabotage”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in televised remarks on Friday that statements by Ukrainian officials about striking facilities in Crimea signaled “an escalation of the conflict openly encouraged by the United States and its NATO allies.” Ryabkov said Russian officials had warned the US against such actions in phone calls with senior members of the Biden administration, adding that the US’s “deep and open involvement” in the war in Ukraine “essentially puts the US on the brink of becoming a party. in the conflict”. Despite the latest incidents, one Western official said the war is at a “virtually operational stalemate,” with neither side able to launch major attacks. “The whole pace of the campaign has slowed, in part because both sides have become more aware that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that their spending rates and ammunition conservation are important,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss public information matters. Later on Friday, a Ukrainian official said two civilians were injured in Russian shelling of Ukrainian communities adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the latest in a long line of such shelling charges in recent weeks. “A new enemy attack in the Nikopoli district. Five shells fired by Russian artillery fell into the residential areas of Marchanets,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko told Telegram. Both Nikopol and Marhanets are Ukrainian-controlled towns facing the nuclear power plant across the Dnieper River. “According to the first information, two people have been injured: an 18-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Both are in the hospital,” Reznichenko added. Kyiv and Moscow continued to blame each other for the bombing near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. A senior official in Ukraine’s presidential office told reporters that “the threat of an environmental disaster on a global scale” remains due to the Russian military’s “periodic shelling” of the plant. Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said at the same briefing that Russian shelling had destroyed “more than 3,700 objects of infrastructure” near the plant, including heating, electricity, natural gas and water facilities. Zelenskyy also highlighted the situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant in his speech on Friday evening. “If Russia’s blackmail with radioactivity continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time. Because not a single directive at any nuclear plant in the world provides a process in the event that a terrorist state turns a nuclear plant into a target,” he said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in their first phone conversation since May 28 that Ukrainian shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “raised the risk of a large-scale disaster that could to lead to radioactive contamination of large territories’. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in southern Ukraine has been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began on February 24. Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the plant and using its facilities to launch raids on Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces cynically used the plant as a shield, knowing the Ukrainians would hesitate to fire. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, has accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. The French presidency said in a statement that Macron “underlined his concerns” about the situation at the Zaporizhia plant and expressed his support for the deployment of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to the site “as soon as possible.” Putin agreed to deploy the mission under the terms discussed, according to the French statement. The Kremlin said that “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the organization’s experts.” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-backed head of the interim administration for the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on Friday that an IAEA mission could approach the plant from Ukrainian-controlled territory, a shift in position of Moscow who had previously suggested that the shipment should travel to the plant from Crimea. “I think they may also be coming from the Ukrainian side,” Balitsky said in televised comments. “We can bring them safely into the factory and show where the fire is coming from and who’s shooting.” Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to international organizations in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said he believed an agency visit could realistically take place in early September. IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: — State energy company Gazprom said a key Russian natural gas pipeline will shut down for three days of maintenance at the end of this month, increasing economic pressure on Germany and other European countries that depend on the fuel industry for power. electricity and heat houses. The latest shutdown comes a month after Gazprom restored gas supplies through the pipeline to just one-fifth of its capacity following an earlier shutdown for maintenance. Russia blamed the reductions through the pipeline on technical problems, but Germany called the shutdown a political move by the Kremlin to sow uncertainty and raise prices amid the conflict in Ukraine. — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a port visit to the Ukrainian coastal city of Odessa, where he praised ongoing efforts to maintain a Black Sea shipping lane that allows vital Ukrainian grain shipments to be exported. Guterres said 25 ships have left Odessa and other Ukrainian ports since Russia and Ukraine signed a four-month grain export deal in July. Those ships have transported more than 600,000 tons of grain and other food supplies such as wheat, corn, sunflower oil and soybeans, Guterres said. __ Responding to a report that Russia plans to divert electricity from the Zaporizhia nuclear plant to the Russian grid, the UN chief said the UN supports the demilitarization of the plant, saying that doing so would solve the problem. “And obviously, electricity from Zaporizhzhia is Ukrainian electricity, and it is necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected,” Guterres said. — At least five people were killed and 10 others wounded in Russian shelling of towns and villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, regional authorities said. Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv also killed at least one civilian early Friday. Russian missiles again hit port facilities and a university building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv. __ Ukraine’s military said it had thwarted more than a dozen Russian attempts to advance into the eastern Donetsk region, the frontline of Moscow’s offensive. In its regular social media update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also said that Russia continued to bomb towns and villages in the south and east of Ukraine.

The governor of the largest city in Russian-occupied Crimea said a drone was shot down there.  “The air defense system is operating in Sevastopol,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.  “According to preliminary data, the UAVs.  The targets were shot down,” he said.  On Thursday, Razvozhayev reported that a drone was shot down near Sevastopol’s local airport.  His claims could not be immediately verified.

Jill Lawless in London contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at

title: “Russia And Ukraine Are Fighting Over Fighting Near A Nuclear Facility Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-10-28” author: “Paulette Gomez”

The fire broke out late Thursday at the ammunition storage building near the village of Timonovo in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border. About 1,100 people live in Timonovo and Soloti, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border. No one was injured, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The fire came days after another ammunition depot exploded on the Crimean peninsula, a Russian-held territory on the Black Sea annexed by Moscow in 2014. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air base in Crimea, demonstrating both Russian vulnerability and Ukrainian ability to strike deep behind enemy lines. Ukrainian authorities have not publicly claimed responsibility. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines following the Crimea blasts, which Russia blamed on “sabotage”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in televised remarks on Friday that statements by Ukrainian officials about striking facilities in Crimea signaled “an escalation of the conflict openly encouraged by the United States and its NATO allies.” Ryabkov said Russian officials had warned the US against such actions in phone calls with senior members of the Biden administration, adding that the US’s “deep and open involvement” in the war in Ukraine “essentially puts the US on the brink of becoming a party. in the conflict”. Despite the latest incidents, one Western official said the war is at a “virtually operational stalemate,” with neither side able to launch major attacks. “The whole pace of the campaign has slowed, in part because both sides have become more aware that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that their spending rates and ammunition conservation are important,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss public information matters. Later on Friday, a Ukrainian official said two civilians were injured in Russian shelling of Ukrainian communities adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the latest in a long line of such shelling charges in recent weeks. “A new enemy attack in the Nikopoli district. Five shells fired by Russian artillery fell into the residential areas of Marchanets,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko told Telegram. Both Nikopol and Marhanets are Ukrainian-controlled towns facing the nuclear power plant across the Dnieper River. “According to the first information, two people have been injured: an 18-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Both are in the hospital,” Reznichenko added. Kyiv and Moscow continued to blame each other for the bombing near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. A senior official in Ukraine’s presidential office told reporters that “the threat of an environmental disaster on a global scale” remains due to the Russian military’s “periodic shelling” of the plant. Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said at the same briefing that Russian shelling had destroyed “more than 3,700 objects of infrastructure” near the plant, including heating, electricity, natural gas and water facilities. Zelenskyy also highlighted the situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant in his speech on Friday evening. “If Russia’s blackmail with radioactivity continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time. Because not a single directive at any nuclear plant in the world provides a process in the event that a terrorist state turns a nuclear plant into a target,” he said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in their first phone conversation since May 28 that Ukrainian shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “raised the risk of a large-scale disaster that could to lead to radioactive contamination of large territories’. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in southern Ukraine has been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began on February 24. Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the plant and using its facilities to launch raids on Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces cynically used the plant as a shield, knowing the Ukrainians would hesitate to fire. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, has accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. The French presidency said in a statement that Macron “underlined his concerns” about the situation at the Zaporizhia plant and expressed his support for the deployment of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to the site “as soon as possible.” Putin agreed to deploy the mission under the terms discussed, according to the French statement. The Kremlin said that “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the organization’s experts.” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-backed head of the interim administration for the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on Friday that an IAEA mission could approach the plant from Ukrainian-controlled territory, a shift in position of Moscow who had previously suggested that the shipment should travel to the plant from Crimea. “I think they may also be coming from the Ukrainian side,” Balitsky said in televised comments. “We can bring them safely into the factory and show where the fire is coming from and who’s shooting.” Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to international organizations in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said he believed an agency visit could realistically take place in early September. IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: — State energy company Gazprom said a key Russian natural gas pipeline will shut down for three days of maintenance at the end of this month, increasing economic pressure on Germany and other European countries that depend on the fuel industry for power. electricity and heat houses. The latest shutdown comes a month after Gazprom restored gas supplies through the pipeline to just one-fifth of its capacity following an earlier shutdown for maintenance. Russia blamed the reductions through the pipeline on technical problems, but Germany called the shutdown a political move by the Kremlin to sow uncertainty and raise prices amid the conflict in Ukraine. — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a port visit to the Ukrainian coastal city of Odessa, where he praised ongoing efforts to maintain a Black Sea shipping lane that allows vital Ukrainian grain shipments to be exported. Guterres said 25 ships have left Odessa and other Ukrainian ports since Russia and Ukraine signed a four-month grain export deal in July. Those ships have transported more than 600,000 tons of grain and other food supplies such as wheat, corn, sunflower oil and soybeans, Guterres said. __ Responding to a report that Russia plans to divert electricity from the Zaporizhia nuclear plant to the Russian grid, the UN chief said the UN supports the demilitarization of the plant, saying that doing so would solve the problem. “And obviously, electricity from Zaporizhzhia is Ukrainian electricity, and it is necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected,” Guterres said. — At least five people were killed and 10 others wounded in Russian shelling of towns and villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, regional authorities said. Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv also killed at least one civilian early Friday. Russian missiles again hit port facilities and a university building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv. __ Ukraine’s military said it had thwarted more than a dozen Russian attempts to advance into the eastern Donetsk region, the frontline of Moscow’s offensive. In its regular social media update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also said that Russia continued to bomb towns and villages in the south and east of Ukraine.

The governor of the largest city in Russian-occupied Crimea said a drone was shot down there.  “The air defense system is operating in Sevastopol,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.  “According to preliminary data, the UAVs.  The targets were shot down,” he said.  On Thursday, Razvozhayev reported that a drone was shot down near Sevastopol’s local airport.  His claims could not be immediately verified.

Jill Lawless in London contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at

title: “Russia And Ukraine Are Fighting Over Fighting Near A Nuclear Facility Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-12” author: “Joe Marden”

The fire broke out late Thursday at the ammunition storage building near the village of Timonovo in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border. About 1,100 people live in Timonovo and Soloti, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border. No one was injured, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The fire came days after another ammunition depot exploded on the Crimean peninsula, a Russian-held territory on the Black Sea annexed by Moscow in 2014. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air base in Crimea, demonstrating both Russian vulnerability and Ukrainian ability to strike deep behind enemy lines. Ukrainian authorities have not publicly claimed responsibility. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines following the Crimea blasts, which Russia blamed on “sabotage”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in televised remarks on Friday that statements by Ukrainian officials about striking facilities in Crimea signaled “an escalation of the conflict openly encouraged by the United States and its NATO allies.” Ryabkov said Russian officials had warned the US against such actions in phone calls with senior members of the Biden administration, adding that the US’s “deep and open involvement” in the war in Ukraine “essentially puts the US on the brink of becoming a party. in the conflict”. Despite the latest incidents, one Western official said the war is at a “virtually operational stalemate,” with neither side able to launch major attacks. “The whole pace of the campaign has slowed, in part because both sides have become more aware that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that their spending rates and ammunition conservation are important,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss public information matters. Later on Friday, a Ukrainian official said two civilians were injured in Russian shelling of Ukrainian communities adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the latest in a long line of such shelling charges in recent weeks. “A new enemy attack in the Nikopoli district. Five shells fired by Russian artillery fell into the residential areas of Marchanets,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko told Telegram. Both Nikopol and Marhanets are Ukrainian-controlled towns facing the nuclear power plant across the Dnieper River. “According to the first information, two people have been injured: an 18-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Both are in the hospital,” Reznichenko added. Kyiv and Moscow continued to blame each other for the bombing near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. A senior official in Ukraine’s presidential office told reporters that “the threat of an environmental disaster on a global scale” remains due to the Russian military’s “periodic shelling” of the plant. Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said at the same briefing that Russian shelling had destroyed “more than 3,700 objects of infrastructure” near the plant, including heating, electricity, natural gas and water facilities. Zelenskyy also highlighted the situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant in his speech on Friday evening. “If Russia’s blackmail with radioactivity continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time. Because not a single directive at any nuclear plant in the world provides a process in the event that a terrorist state turns a nuclear plant into a target,” he said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in their first phone conversation since May 28 that Ukrainian shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “raised the risk of a large-scale disaster that could to lead to radioactive contamination of large territories’. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in southern Ukraine has been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began on February 24. Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the plant and using its facilities to launch raids on Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces cynically used the plant as a shield, knowing the Ukrainians would hesitate to fire. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, has accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. The French presidency said in a statement that Macron “underlined his concerns” about the situation at the Zaporizhia plant and expressed his support for the deployment of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to the site “as soon as possible.” Putin agreed to deploy the mission under the terms discussed, according to the French statement. The Kremlin said that “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the organization’s experts.” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-backed head of the interim administration for the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on Friday that an IAEA mission could approach the plant from Ukrainian-controlled territory, a shift in position of Moscow who had previously suggested that the shipment should travel to the plant from Crimea. “I think they may also be coming from the Ukrainian side,” Balitsky said in televised comments. “We can bring them safely into the factory and show where the fire is coming from and who’s shooting.” Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to international organizations in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said he believed an agency visit could realistically take place in early September. IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: — State energy company Gazprom said a key Russian natural gas pipeline will shut down for three days of maintenance at the end of this month, increasing economic pressure on Germany and other European countries that depend on the fuel industry for power. electricity and heat houses. The latest shutdown comes a month after Gazprom restored gas supplies through the pipeline to just one-fifth of its capacity following an earlier shutdown for maintenance. Russia blamed the reductions through the pipeline on technical problems, but Germany called the shutdown a political move by the Kremlin to sow uncertainty and raise prices amid the conflict in Ukraine. — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a port visit to the Ukrainian coastal city of Odessa, where he praised ongoing efforts to maintain a Black Sea shipping lane that allows vital Ukrainian grain shipments to be exported. Guterres said 25 ships have left Odessa and other Ukrainian ports since Russia and Ukraine signed a four-month grain export deal in July. Those ships have transported more than 600,000 tons of grain and other food supplies such as wheat, corn, sunflower oil and soybeans, Guterres said. __ Responding to a report that Russia plans to divert electricity from the Zaporizhia nuclear plant to the Russian grid, the UN chief said the UN supports the demilitarization of the plant, saying that doing so would solve the problem. “And obviously, electricity from Zaporizhzhia is Ukrainian electricity, and it is necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected,” Guterres said. — At least five people were killed and 10 others wounded in Russian shelling of towns and villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, regional authorities said. Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv also killed at least one civilian early Friday. Russian missiles again hit port facilities and a university building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv. __ Ukraine’s military said it had thwarted more than a dozen Russian attempts to advance into the eastern Donetsk region, the frontline of Moscow’s offensive. In its regular social media update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also said that Russia continued to bomb towns and villages in the south and east of Ukraine.

The governor of the largest city in Russian-occupied Crimea said a drone was shot down there.  “The air defense system is operating in Sevastopol,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.  “According to preliminary data, the UAVs.  The targets were shot down,” he said.  On Thursday, Razvozhayev reported that a drone was shot down near Sevastopol’s local airport.  His claims could not be immediately verified.

Jill Lawless in London contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at

title: “Russia And Ukraine Are Fighting Over Fighting Near A Nuclear Facility Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-06” author: “Adriana Maker”

The fire broke out late Thursday at the ammunition storage building near the village of Timonovo in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border. About 1,100 people live in Timonovo and Soloti, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the border. No one was injured, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The fire came days after another ammunition depot exploded on the Crimean peninsula, a Russian-held territory on the Black Sea annexed by Moscow in 2014. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an air base in Crimea, demonstrating both Russian vulnerability and Ukrainian ability to strike deep behind enemy lines. Ukrainian authorities have not publicly claimed responsibility. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines following the Crimea blasts, which Russia blamed on “sabotage”. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in televised remarks on Friday that statements by Ukrainian officials about striking facilities in Crimea signaled “an escalation of the conflict openly encouraged by the United States and its NATO allies.” Ryabkov said Russian officials had warned the US against such actions in phone calls with senior members of the Biden administration, adding that the US’s “deep and open involvement” in the war in Ukraine “essentially puts the US on the brink of becoming a party. in the conflict”. Despite the latest incidents, one Western official said the war is at a “virtually operational stalemate,” with neither side able to launch major attacks. “The whole pace of the campaign has slowed, in part because both sides have become more aware that this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that their spending rates and ammunition conservation are important,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss public information matters. Later on Friday, a Ukrainian official said two civilians were injured in Russian shelling of Ukrainian communities adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the latest in a long line of such shelling charges in recent weeks. “A new enemy attack in the Nikopoli district. Five shells fired by Russian artillery fell into the residential areas of Marchanets,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko told Telegram. Both Nikopol and Marhanets are Ukrainian-controlled towns facing the nuclear power plant across the Dnieper River. “According to the first information, two people have been injured: an 18-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Both are in the hospital,” Reznichenko added. Kyiv and Moscow continued to blame each other for the bombing near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. A senior official in Ukraine’s presidential office told reporters that “the threat of an environmental disaster on a global scale” remains due to the Russian military’s “periodic shelling” of the plant. Kirill Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, said at the same briefing that Russian shelling had destroyed “more than 3,700 objects of infrastructure” near the plant, including heating, electricity, natural gas and water facilities. Zelenskyy also highlighted the situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant in his speech on Friday evening. “If Russia’s blackmail with radioactivity continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time. Because not a single directive at any nuclear plant in the world provides a process in the event that a terrorist state turns a nuclear plant into a target,” he said. Meanwhile, the Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in their first phone conversation since May 28 that Ukrainian shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “raised the risk of a large-scale disaster that could to lead to radioactive contamination of large territories’. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in southern Ukraine has been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began on February 24. Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the plant and using its facilities to launch raids on Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces cynically used the plant as a shield, knowing the Ukrainians would hesitate to fire. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, has accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. The French presidency said in a statement that Macron “underlined his concerns” about the situation at the Zaporizhia plant and expressed his support for the deployment of an International Atomic Energy Agency mission to the site “as soon as possible.” Putin agreed to deploy the mission under the terms discussed, according to the French statement. The Kremlin said that “the Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the organization’s experts.” Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-backed head of the interim administration for the Russian-controlled part of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on Friday that an IAEA mission could approach the plant from Ukrainian-controlled territory, a shift in position of Moscow who had previously suggested that the shipment should travel to the plant from Crimea. “I think they may also be coming from the Ukrainian side,” Balitsky said in televised comments. “We can bring them safely into the factory and show where the fire is coming from and who’s shooting.” Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian envoy to international organizations in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said he believed an agency visit could realistically take place in early September. IN OTHER DEVELOPMENTS: — State energy company Gazprom said a key Russian natural gas pipeline will shut down for three days of maintenance at the end of this month, increasing economic pressure on Germany and other European countries that depend on the fuel industry for power. electricity and heat houses. The latest shutdown comes a month after Gazprom restored gas supplies through the pipeline to just one-fifth of its capacity following an earlier shutdown for maintenance. Russia blamed the reductions through the pipeline on technical problems, but Germany called the shutdown a political move by the Kremlin to sow uncertainty and raise prices amid the conflict in Ukraine. — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made a port visit to the Ukrainian coastal city of Odessa, where he praised ongoing efforts to maintain a Black Sea shipping lane that allows vital Ukrainian grain shipments to be exported. Guterres said 25 ships have left Odessa and other Ukrainian ports since Russia and Ukraine signed a four-month grain export deal in July. Those ships have transported more than 600,000 tons of grain and other food supplies such as wheat, corn, sunflower oil and soybeans, Guterres said. __ Responding to a report that Russia plans to divert electricity from the Zaporizhia nuclear plant to the Russian grid, the UN chief said the UN supports the demilitarization of the plant, saying that doing so would solve the problem. “And obviously, electricity from Zaporizhzhia is Ukrainian electricity, and it is necessary, especially during the winter for the Ukrainian people, and this principle must be fully respected,” Guterres said. — At least five people were killed and 10 others wounded in Russian shelling of towns and villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, regional authorities said. Russian shelling of the city of Kharkiv also killed at least one civilian early Friday. Russian missiles again hit port facilities and a university building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv. __ Ukraine’s military said it had thwarted more than a dozen Russian attempts to advance into the eastern Donetsk region, the frontline of Moscow’s offensive. In its regular social media update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine also said that Russia continued to bomb towns and villages in the south and east of Ukraine.

The governor of the largest city in Russian-occupied Crimea said a drone was shot down there.  “The air defense system is operating in Sevastopol,” Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.  “According to preliminary data, the UAVs.  The targets were shot down,” he said.  On Thursday, Razvozhayev reported that a drone was shot down near Sevastopol’s local airport.  His claims could not be immediately verified.

Jill Lawless in London contributed.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war at