Moscow announced, on Sunday, a large number of Ukrainian planes shot down since the beginning of the war, while Kyiv proposed a solution to the crisis of the Zaporozhye nuclear plant.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had shot down 287 planes, 151 helicopters of the Ukrainian army, 1,872 drones, and 372 air defense systems since the war began last February.

Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that his country's forces managed in the last 24 hours to destroy 11 tanks, 17 military vehicles and 10 armored vehicles in the Mykolaiv and Krivorogsky regions of southern Ukraine.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian General Staff said, on Sunday, that the Russian forces fired 14 missiles and carried out more than 15 air strikes on military and civilian facilities in the country during the past hours.

The authority said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that the missiles and air strikes targeted the infrastructure in the Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Voznesk, Ochakiv and Sukhie Stavok regions, according to the local Ukrinform Agency.

The Ukrainian General Staff indicated that a Russian missile carrier in the Black Sea carrying Kalibr cruise missiles is still in combat readiness.

The authority said that Russian aviation carried out combat operations to support military movements on the ground, especially in the southern regions of Buh and Donetsk.


Ukrainian proposal

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmyal suggested sending a peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the European Union and the United Nations to the Zaporozhye nuclear plant to secure demilitarized zones around it.

During a press conference held by Schmihal in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz, Schmihal said, "We expect that the International Atomic Energy Agency mission that visited the station (last week) will have an impact."

He added that he spoke with Schultz about the need to "form another peacekeeping mission under the auspices of the European Union and the United Nations," according to the agency.

Shmihal pointed out that the mission of the mission includes "complete demilitarization of the Zaporozhye station, and the establishment of a 30-kilometer demilitarized zone around the station."

On last March 4, Russia imposed its control over the Zaporozhye station, which is the largest in Europe, and its surroundings have recently witnessed attacks and bombings, which Moscow and Kiev exchange accusations about.

The plant includes 6 nuclear reactors and provides about 20% of the total electricity in Ukraine, and has a production capacity of about 5,700 megawatts per hour.


Ukrainian progress

In a related context, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that his forces had recaptured two villages in southern Ukraine, and a third in its east, as well as more lands in the east as well.

He did not specifically mention the whereabouts of these areas and did not mention the date of their recovery from Russian forces, saying only that he had received "good reports" in Sunday's meeting from his military commanders and intelligence chief.

In his video night speech, Zelensky thanked his forces for "the liberation of a village in the Donetsk region in the east and the capture of high lands in an eastern region also in the direction of Lyschansk-Seversk and the liberation of two villages in the south."