A Russian soldier at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine, August 4, 2022 (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)
Friday’s Coverage: France Launches “Artillery Coalition” for Kyiv
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1530 GMT:
“The Way Home”, made up of female relatives of Russian soldiers, has demonstrated in front of the election headquarters of Vladimir Putin.
Maria Andreyeva made an emotional appeal:
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has issued a decree that my husband has to be there [in Ukraine]. I’m interested to know when he will issue a decree that my husband has to be home.
A woman told her that Russian soldiers in Ukraine were defending the Motherland and that she should pray for them.
Andreyeva responded:
So what’s next? The Defense Ministry has spent its money. Now we need to squeeze everything out of our guys, get the last life out of them? So that they come back to us just as stumps?
Will they give me the stump? What will I get back? A man without legs, without arms, a sick man? Don’t you know what’s happening there?
She told reporters that her toddler daughter suffers from arrested speech development because of her father’s absence.
All my family’s problems can only be solved by one thing – by my husband being demobilised. Because she is a completely different child when her father comes home.
Putin, who has amended the Russian Constitution so he can stay in power until 2036, is campaigning for a staged election in March.
UPDATE 0713 GMT:
Microsoft says Russia’s Midnight Blizzard group, also known as Nobelium, hacked the e-mail accounts of Microsoft executives, cyber-security employees, the legal office and other departments.
Microsoft, which discovered the intrusion on January 12, described a “State attack” with the hackers supported by Russian authorities.
In November 2023, the hackers stole some e-mails and documents attached to them, searching the material for information related to Midnight Blizzard.
Microsoft said there is no evidence that hackers were able to enter user services, source code, or artificial intelligence systems.
UPDATE 0701 GMT:
Russia’s exports fell almost 30% in 2023, according to the Russian Central Bank.
Exports were $422.7 billion last year, compared to a record $592.1 billion in 2022.
The 2023 figure is the lowest since 2020 and, if the pandemic year is excluded, since 2018.
Russia’s trade balance was further worsened by a 10% increase in imports to $304.4 billion, a return to the level of 2021.
Moscow also faced a 17% drop in the average of price of Urals oil, and gas exports fell sharply amid European restrictions. Plans for coal exports have been hindered by a lack of transportation.
UPDATE 0649 GMT:
The Ukraine General Staff says air defenses downed four of seven Iran-made “kamikaze” drones launched by Russia overnight.
The Russians also fired at least one missile in 23 airstrikes, and attacked troops and populated areas 59 times from multiple launch rocket systems.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia has put mines back in place at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine.
Experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency discovered the mines along the perimeter of the plant, Europe’s largest, said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in a statement on Friday.
Grossi said the mines are in a buffer zone between the facility’s internal and external fences, in a restricted area inaccessible to operational plant personnel.
He emphasized, “The presence of mines is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards.”
Russia, which seized the complex and its six reactors in the opening days of its 23-month invasion, has raised concerns since the autumn with its restrictions of IAEA inspections. The experts have been blocked from turbine halls and rooftops.
Russia has given no explanation for the denials. Its forces have turned much of Zaporizhzhia into a military base, used to launch attacks across the Dnipro River on Ukrainian-held territory.
Five reactors are in cold shutdown, while the sixth is in hot shutdown to provide steam and heat to the nearby town of Enerhodar. They have been threatened by recurrent damage to power lines to the complex, forcing it to rely on backup diesel generators.
The IAEA monitors said the plant lost its immediate back-up power supply to the reactor units for eight hours this week. The situation was salvaged by two power electrical transformers put into operation.
Officials at The plant say they are investigating the cause of the failure, but saw no sign of external transformer damage.
Grossi commented:
The plant’s vulnerable power status remains one of the main dangers for nuclear safety and security at the site. The situation remains extremely worrying in this respect. The site has already lost all off-site power eight times since August 2022, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators.
