On Saturday, Ukrainian intelligence accused Russian forces of bombing the Zaporozhye nuclear plant again, causing damage to it, while a Russian official threatened to cut ties with the United States if it confiscated frozen assets of his country.

The Ukrainian General Intelligence said - in a statement today, Saturday - that it was able to determine the place from which the station was targeted, which is the village of Vodian in the Zaporozhye region (southeast of Ukraine), and added that the first batch of Russian artillery bombardment hit the pumping station and the underground thermal communications workshop.

She added that another wave of bombing led to significant damage to the firefighting unit responsible for the safety of the station, which is the largest of its kind in Europe and is currently under the control of Russian forces.

And the RIA Novosti agency quoted a member of the Russian Military and Civil Administration in Zaporozhye that Ukrainian forces had again bombed the city of Energodar and the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.


The local administration loyal to Moscow published pictures of what it said were the remnants of US-made missiles used by the Ukrainian army in bombing the nuclear plant, accusing the United States, Britain and Poland of participating with Ukraine in the attack on the station.

Earlier, the Ukrainian army accused the Russian forces of targeting the nuclear plant, and said that it had detected radiation emitted as a result of the bombing.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned of what he described as a possible nuclear disaster, saying that the consequences of this disaster could be more dangerous than the consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine in 1986.

In Washington, a Pentagon official denied the existence of any threat surrounding the Zaporozhye nuclear plant, noting that the Russians had previously launched missiles from the vicinity of the nuclear plant, and that he did not believe that the Ukrainians had an interest in bombing the plant.

The Ukrainian army targets Russian sites in Kharkiv with Grad missiles (Reuters)

Developments in the south and east

On the ground, the Ukrainian army said - today, Saturday - that it launched an attack on the positions of the Russian forces in Kherson and Bastanka, east of Mykolaiv (south), and added that it had managed to destroy the Nova Kakhovka Dam bridge, which is the fourth and last bridge in the region, noting that the Russian forces are now unable to Move her equipment now.

The Military Operations Command of the Southern District of the Ukrainian Army also said - today, Saturday - that the situation on this front has returned to tension again, compared to the past two days.

The Southern Command added that the Russian forces continued their operations along the front line and their helicopters launched attacks on the Mykolaiv front.

And the Ukrainian army said - yesterday evening, Friday - that it had targeted 5 Russian arms depots in Kherson, and talked about its ability to fire control of the Russian supply routes in the region.

In the developments of the battles in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced today that its forces have completely taken control of the Bisky area, adjacent to Donetsk International Airport, and destroyed the US-made HIMARS missile launcher and ammunition depot in the city of Kramatrosk.

The ministry spoke of the killing of more than 300 Ukrainian soldiers during the past 24 hours in separate attacks, and said that 70 of them were killed as a result of the bombing with long-range, high-precision missiles launched from the sea and land, and with missile launch systems, targeting the reserves of the Ukrainian army in the area of ​​the "Gavrilovka" railway station. In the Kharkiv Province (Northeast).

The Russian Defense Ministry also reported that its forces destroyed two Ukrainian helicopters in Mykolaiv.

For his part, Donetsk Governor Pavlo Krilenko said that the Russian attacks during the past 24 hours had killed 5 civilians and wounded 24 others, while a US Defense Department official said that the Russians had made gains in the Bakhmut region of Donetsk province, but at a great cost.

As for the governor of Kharkiv, Olek Sinohubov, he said that the city was subjected - yesterday evening, Friday - to a Russian bombardment with two missiles, without causing any losses.


Cut the relationships

Meanwhile, the head of the North American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Alexander Darchiev, said today, Saturday, that any possible confiscation of Russian assets by the United States will destroy bilateral relations.

"We warn the Americans about the dire consequences of such actions, which will permanently harm bilateral relations, and this is neither in their interest nor in ours," the Russian TASS news agency quoted Darchiev as saying.

The Russian official also said that his country had warned the United States that diplomatic relations would be severely damaged, and could even be severed, if Russia was designated a state sponsor of terrorism.

And last July, a US prosecutor said the Justice Department was seeking a broader mandate from Congress to seize the assets of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In response to the war it launched against Ukraine on February 24, the United States and its allies in Europe and abroad imposed unprecedented economic, financial and diplomatic sanctions on Russia, including freezing about half of its nearly $640 billion in gold and foreign exchange reserves.

The United States and its European allies also froze $30 billion in assets owned by wealthy people with ties to Putin, including yachts, helicopters, real estate and art, according to the administration of US President Joe Biden.

It is noteworthy that senior Western officials, including the European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, have proposed the expropriation of frozen Russian reserves to help finance Ukraine's post-war reconstruction.