Ukraine updates: Drone attack sparks Volgograd storage fire

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of trying to attack the Kursk nuclear power station. The plant lies some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the part of the Kursk region where Ukrainian forces are engaged in an incursion.

The assertion comes just hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said its chief, Rafael Grossi, would visit the facility next week.

"The enemy tried to strike the nuclear power plant at night, the IAEA has been informed," Putin said in a televised government meeting.

The Kremlin leader gave no evidence for his claims and provided no further details on the alleged attack. Russia has repeatedly warned that the energy plant could be vulnerable since Ukrainian troops and tanks stormed into its western Kursk region on August 6.

Russian forces have been occupying Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the biggest in Europe — since shortly after the launch of Russia's full-scale invasion.

That offensive is now in its third week, and Kyiv has laid claim to dozens of Russian border settlements. There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to Putin's claim.

Russia's FSB security service says it has opened a criminal case against a journalist working for CNN who it said had illegally crossed the Russian border to film a report inside the Kursk region. 

The FSB said it had also opened similar cases against two Ukrainian journalists for allegedly covering Kyiv's incursion in the Kursk region.

CNN did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The US embassy in Kyiv says there is a heightened risk of there was a heightened risk of Russian missile and drone attacks throughout Ukraine in the build-up to Ukrainian Independence Day.

The day marks 33 years since its independence from the Soviet Union on Saturday.

Earlier this week, Ukraine's top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia had launched 9,600 missiles and 14,000 drones in strikes against Ukraine since the beginning of Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"The US Embassy in Kyiv assesses that during the next several days and through the weekend there is an increased risk of ... Russian drone and missile attacks throughout Ukraine in connection with Ukraine's Independence Day on August 24," it said.

Independence Day has taken on greater significance since Russia's invasion, stirring patriotic feelings among many in the country. 

A Russian official said that soldiers stopped a Ukrainian reconnaissance team from breaching the border in Russia's Bryansk region, some 240 km (150 miles) from the site of Ukraine's incursion into the neighboring region of Kursk.

Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz says that intelligence service personnel, border guards and Russian soldiers staved off an attack by a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance team on Wednesday.

The attempted incursion allegedly took place in the Klimovo district that borders Ukraine's Chernihiv region. 

The head of the United Nations nuclear agency, Rafael Grossi, is planning a visit to Russia's Kursk nuclear power plant next week in light of Ukraine's surprise counteroffensive in the region.

"We can confirm [it's planned for] next week," a spokesperson for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.

Just after Ukraine launched its offensive, the IAEA urged Russia and Ukraine to exercise "maximum restraint" to "avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences." 

Grossi had said he was "personally in contact with the relevant authorities of both countries." 

He said he would "continue to update the international community as appropriate."

The power plant has six units — two in shutdown, two fully operational and two under construction. 

Authorities in the Kursk region of Russia have started to install concrete shelters for civilians amid Ukraine's ongoing incursion in the region.

Russian forces have been fighting Ukrainian troops in Kursk since August 6, when Kyiv's troops crossed the border forcing the evacuation of thousands of residents. 

"Today, the installation of reinforced concrete shelters began in Kursk. The decision to install such structures was made by the operational headquarters," Acting Governor Alexei Smirnov wrote on Telegram. 

"On my instructions, the Kursk city administration has identified key points for the placement of concrete modular shelters - in places where people gather in large numbers."

"We plan to equip 60 main bus stops in the regional center with reinforced concrete shelters."

"Similar events are being held in Zheleznogorsk. There, locations have already been identified for the installation of 10 reinforced concrete shelters. Shelters will also be installed in Kurchatov, their number and placement points will be designated in the near future."

Smirnov published a photograph of one of the structures being delivered by truck. The city of Kursk is home to some 450,000 people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has toured the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy on Thursday in his first visit since Kyiv's forces entered Russian territory.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces had claimed control of another settlement in the Russian region of Kursk and taken more Russian prisoners of war.  

"Another settlement in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control, and we have replenished the exchange fund," Zelenskyy wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter after hearing a report from the military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The Ukrainian president hopes Kyiv can exchange the detainees for captured Ukrainians.

A drone attack launched by Ukraine overnight caused a fire to break out at a military base in southern Russia, a regional governor said.

Governor of the Volgograd region Andrey Bocharov said air defenses had repelled most of the unmanned aircraft. However, he said a downed drone had crashed and sparked the blaze.

The governor said that the premises of a military site were hit, without offering further details.

Russian war bloggers said the target was the Marinovka Air Base, some 45 kilometers from the regional capital, Volgograd.

Footage circulating on Russian social media showed an explosion in the night sky, reportedly close to the base. Marinovka lies some 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of the Ukrainian border. 

A security source in Kyiv later said that it had hit the same airfield, striking a storage site for fuel and glide bombs.

Air traffic was temporarily restricted at the civilian airport in Volgograd because of the risk posed by the drones.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that 28 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight, 13 over the Volgograd region alone.

rc/rmt (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)