The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced his arrival in Ukraine on September 3 as part of ongoing efforts to “help prevent a nuclear accident” amid shelling near a major nuclear power plant, while Kyiv reported new Russian attacks on infrastructure and Moscow boosted its own air defenses near the border.
IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi tweeted before noon local time that he’d begun his 10th visit to Ukraine with meetings with senior officials while Russian still control Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhya in southern Ukraine.
A day earlier, Grossi stressed the importance of his mission by saying, “I’m on my way to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya [nuclear power plant] to continue our assistance & help prevent a nuclear accident.”
Ukrainian officials reported multiple civilian deaths from overnight Russian attacks in Zaporizhzhya and an attack on the country’s railway infrastructure.
Ukraine’s General Staff said around one-quarter of the clashes with Russian forces over the past 24 hours had taken place in the east near the strategically significant Donetsk-region town of Pokrovsk, where Russian troops have reportedly made significant gains in recent weeks.
Ukrainian Railways said on September 2 that it was continuing evacuation efforts for families from Pokrovsk, which is now only about 10 kilometers from the front lines.
The state rail operator said on September 3 that an enemy drone had struck a locomotive on a Korchakivka-Sumy train but no injuries were reported. It also said overnight attacks had targeted rail infrastructure in the northeastern Sumy and the southern Dnipropetrovsk regions.
Ukrainian officials said an 8-year-old boy and his mother were killed in Russian shelling overnight in the Zaporizhzhya region.
Ukraine’s military said on September 3 that it had downed 27 of 35 Russian drones overnight around the country. It said antiaircraft defenses had functioned in the Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Kherson, Poltava, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions.
The Russian Defense Ministry said early on September 3 that it was deploying more air-defense systems in the southern Belgorod region that borders central Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and in the Russian region of Kursk where Kyiv launched its surprise incursion last month.
The governor of Russia’s Saratov region, Roman Busargin, said a man injured when a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building on August 26 had died in hospital.
The head of Ukraine’s military administration in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said one of seven victims of a Russian rocket attack on that central Ukrainian city had since died.
Lysak said via Telegram on September 3 that the Russian attacks had resumed on the downtown area and damaged a local administration building.
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted multiple anonymous sources on September 3 as saying Russia’s Gazpromneft oil refinery suspended work at the Euro+ combined processing unit in Moscow after a fire two days earlier. The sources said the plant was expected to be back online within six days.
By RFE/RL