Russian-US bilateral relations nearing a total rupture, says Moscow
Kyiv/Vienna: More than 10 thousand hectares of woodland is burning in the Chornobyl zone, causing increased levels of radioactive air pollution. As the exclusion zone has been seized by the Russian military, Ukrainian emergency services are unable to put out the forest fires, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Parliament of Ukraine, stated today.
General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said the Russian army was pulling back some regiments to the Chornobyl region and further to Belarus for restoration of combat capability and reinforcement of the blockade of Kyiv.
Also read: Russia again damages Chornobyl powers lines, claims Ukraine
Ukraine further told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)on March 27, 2022, that it still did not know when the next staff rotation at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) might take place, almost a week after the most recent turnover of technical personnel at the site. The IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in Vienna that the last rotation was on March 20-21, 2022, when a new shift of technical staff arrived from the nearby city of Slavutych to replace colleagues who had worked at the Chornobyl NPP since the Russian military took control of the site on February 24, 2022.
The IAEA said that Ukrain also informed it that in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, a nuclear research facility had come under renewed fire but it was not yet possible to assess the damage. The facility, which had also previously been hit, had been used for research and development and radioisotope production for medical and industrial applications. “Its nuclear material is subcritical and the radioactive inventory is low.” the IAEA said.
Meanwhile, the Head of Mariupol City Council said 50% of Mariupol residents had been evacuated from the city, while 20-30 thousand had been forcibly deported to Russia by the Russian army.
Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk said nearly 40,000 Ukrainians had forcibly been deported to Russia since the start of the war.
Russian forces today replaced the Mayor of Enerhodar near the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant with a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician Andriy Shevchyk, the Head of Enerhodar City Council informed.
The Mayor of Slavutych said three people were killed and two were injured during the Russian assault of Slavutych city in the north of Kyiv.
It may be noted that Moscow accused Washington of trying to “absolve” itself of responsibility for the state of Russian-US bilateral relations, “which are nearing a total rupture. The blame is routinely laid on Russia, which is accused of causing an “escalation” because we do not miss blows and always respond to hostile attacks either in kind or asymmetrically,” it claimed.
The Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on March 26, 2022, that it does not “evade dialogue” and was ready to hold talks “but only on equal terms, on condition, there is a reciprocal movement, which at present cannot be discerned in Washington even under a magnifying glass”.
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– global bihari bureau
