As of: January 30, 2024, 8:36 a.m
By: Babett Gumbrecht
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Ukrainian soldiers during a maneuver exercise near the city of Zaporizhia.
© IMAGO/Smoliyenko Dmytro/Ukrinform/ABACA
The Ukrainian war is raging in the Zaporizhia region.
Two Russian fortresses come under fire.
The region has high strategic value.
Kiev - The Ukrainian military is said to have attacked two Russian fortresses in the annexed Zaporizhzhia region, in the south of the country.
Proof of this is provided by a short video clip that was recorded in the middle of the night and which the Ukrainian special forces published on social media on Monday.
Several explosions can be seen on the video, which were apparently filmed from the air by a drone.
Meanwhile, the fighting on the southern front continues.
The Zaporizhzhia region, which was annexed by Russia in September 2022, has been the scene of heavy fighting since Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine, along with the Donetsk, Kherson and Luhansk regions.
The sixth largest city in Ukraine has 760,000 inhabitants.
The large city is located on the Dnieper, 70 km south of the city of Dnipro.
Even after almost two years of war in Ukraine, the Kremlin does not fully control these regions.
That is why there are repeated attempts by Ukraine to retake parts of the area.
Think tank confirms advance into western Zaporizhia
That also succeeded.
At least partly.
During the long months of the counteroffensive, Ukraine was able to recapture a few villages in Zaporizhia, even if there were no major successes in the south.
According to the American think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW)
There were no confirmed casualties or gains on the front line on the Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk border.
However, the Ukrainian armed forces made an advance in western Zaporizhzhia.
However, according to experts from the USA, this information could not be independently confirmed.
Don't worry about the catastrophe: experts rule out a second Chernobyl
The region around Zaporizhzhia is of great interest to both parties because the largest nuclear power plant in Europe is located there.
Since the region and therefore the nuclear power plant are located in the middle of the front, the situation is worrying.
The risk of a serious accident is very real, Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear regulator, said on Friday, Newsweek reports.
If another nuclear disaster were to occur here, it would be the second in Ukraine's history.
The world-famous reactor accident in Chernobyl in 1986 also occurred on what is now Ukraine.
At that time the territory still belonged to the Soviet Union.
However, damage to the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia would not be as devastating as the effects of the Chernobyl disaster; the six reactors in total have now been shut down.
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Ukraine is taking countermeasures: building a new, more powerful nuclear power plant
Nevertheless, Ukraine is now primarily lacking electricity from the power plant.
That's why the country, under the leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky, wants to start building four new nuclear reactors this year, reports the French news agency
AFP
.
All four reactors would be built at the Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said on Ukrainian television on Monday.
With the output of a total of six reactors, it will replace Zaporizhzhia as the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and will be “even more powerful” than it.
According to Halushchenko, two of the new reactors are the AP1000 reactor type developed by the US company Westinghouse, and the other two are Soviet-designed VVER-1000 reactors.
The nuclear power plant in western Ukraine, built in the 1980s, currently has two reactors.
Two more have been planned for a long time, but their construction was delayed.
According to the minister, the construction of the four new reactors will take many years.
The first new reactor should be completed in around two and a half years.
Its six reactors have now been shut down.
(bg/AFP)