Russia announced on Monday, August 12, the evacuation of residents of a district in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine and neighboring Kursk, where its army has been facing a large-scale incursion by Ukrainian forces for nearly a week.
“Thousands” of Ukrainian soldiers are taking part in this assault, according to a senior Ukrainian official, with Russia ensuring that it is stopping enemy advances on its soil and has sent reinforcements. “The objective is to stretch the enemy’s positions, inflict maximum losses on them, and destabilize the situation in Russia […] and transfer the war to Russian territory,” a Ukrainian security official told AFP on Saturday evening on condition of anonymity.
Key information:
⇒ Russia expands civilian evacuation zone in Kursk region
⇒ China calls for de-escalation
⇒ Fire at Zaporizhia nuclear power plant
Russia expands civilian evacuation zone in Kursk region
Russia announced on Monday that it was expanding the evacuation zone for civilians in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine and has been the scene of a major Ukrainian incursion since August 6, which has already forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people. “The regional operations center has decided to evacuate residents” of the Belovsky district, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram. As of January 1, 2022, nearly 15,000 people lived there, according to official figures.
Already early Monday morning, Russia announced the evacuation of residents of a district in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine.. “The morning is going to be alarming for us: there is enemy activity on the border of the Krasnoyarsk region,” the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said in a video on Telegram. “For the safety of life and health of our population, we are starting to move” residents of this district “to safer places,” he said.
China calls for de-escalation
Beijing called on “all parties” to “de-escalate” on Monday, at a time when Ukraine has been conducting a major operation in the Kursk border region in recent days that seems to have caught the Kremlin off guard. In a statement, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed the need for both sides “not to expand the battlefield, not to escalate the fighting and not to add fuel to the fire.”
Beijing has regularly called for a halt to the fighting in Ukraine, a position that is controversial because, according to Westerners, it would allow Russia to consolidate its territorial gains.
Fire at Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant
A fire broke out in the cooling system of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, occupied by Russian armed forces, on Sunday evening, with kyiv and Moscow accusing each other of responsibility.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has a team on site, “there is no impact on nuclear safety” while the six reactors are shut down. The head of the administration set up by the Russians in the region, Vladimir Rogov, indicated early on Monday that the fire had been “completely extinguished”.
“IAEA experts saw heavy black smoke coming from the northern part” of the site after hearing “multiple explosions in the evening,” and were informed by management of “a suspected drone attack” on one of the two cooling towers, the UN body said. In a statement, it called for “immediate access” to the affected area “in order to assess the damage” and “determine the possible cause of this event.”
Ukrainian Deputy Energy Minister Arrested for Corruption
A Ukrainian deputy energy minister “was arrested in kyiv with a bribe of half a million dollars,” the Ukrainian security service (SBU) announced in a statement on Monday, congratulating itself on having “revealed a large-scale corruption scheme.” He was placed in pre-trial detention.
According to investigators, the suspect, identified as Oleksandr Kheilo by media reports, demanded bribes from executives of mining companies in western Ukraine who wanted to obtain the transfer of equipment used in mines in the east close to the front line. The official and his three alleged accomplices were caught “red-handed” and face “up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of their property,” according to the SBU statement.