Russia-Ukraine war
Investment projection spelled out to counter hurdles for growth
The government of Bangladesh has projected to upgrade total investment in the country to 33.6 percent of the total GDP on a mid-term basis (in the 2024-25 fiscal year) aiming to overturn the economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
In this investment, the private sector will contribute 26.65 percent of the GDP while the public sector will contribute 7.0 percent.
According to an official document, to attain the gradual acceleration of the GDP, private investment expansion is necessary along with public investment.
The estimated investment target for 2023-24 fiscal year is 32.8 percent with 25.91 percent from the private sector and 6.9 percent from the public sector.
Read more: Lack of financing, policy support causes of weak startup growth in Bangladesh: Speakers
For the running 2022-23 fiscal year, the investment target is 31.5 percent with the private sector contributing 24.81 percent and the public sector adding 6.7 percent.
The estimated GDP target for the current 2022-23 fiscal year is 7.5 percent while the target for 2023-24 and 2024-25 is 7.8 percent and 8.0 percent respectively.
The document stated that the GDP of the last 2021-22 fiscal year was 7.25 percent while in 2020-21 it was 6.94 percent.
The growth in agriculture, industry and service sectors have been estimated at 5.0 percent, 8.8 percent and 7.9 percent respectively for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Read more: Bangladesh's strong growth could be at risk without urgent climate action: World Bank
The official document said that About 7-8 percent real GDP growth is targeted over the medium term based on the assumptions of the gradual recovery of the world economy from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the early resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The document put emphasis on private investment, saying that it needs to be boosted along with public investment to increase capital accumulation.
Total investment in fiscal 2020-21 stands at 31.0 percent of the GDP where the contributions of private and public sectors are 23.7 percent and 7.3 percent respectively.
“But this level of investment is not adequate to achieve around 8.0 percent growth over the medium term,” the document said.
Read more: Tier-2 cities like Gazipur, Narayanganj must promote urban growth outside Dhaka: World Bank
It also mentioned that public investment could not be increased to an expected level due to the lack of capacity in implementing the annual development programme.
Recognising this, the document stated the government has taken steps to bring about some structural changes at both project design and implementation levels.
It mentioned that a potentially huge global supply shock that may reduce growth and push up inflation is affecting the post-COVID-19 recovery.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the economic sanctions on Russia that followed put global energy supplies at risk,” it said.
Read More: More development projects planned to support trade, investment
The document said that Russia supplies around 10 percent of the world’s energy, including 17 percent of its natural gas and 12 percent of its oil.
The jump in oil and gas prices will add to industry costs and reduce consumers’ real income, it added, saying that record-high inflation is currently evident, which also affects Bangladesh.
The total investment in 2018-19 fiscal year was 31.6 percent of the GDP where the share of private and public sector were 23.5 percent and 8 percent respectively.
The investment in 2019-20 fiscal year was 20.8 percent of the GDP (private sector 12.7 percent and public sector 8.1 percent).
Read More: “Bangladesh can be the right place for investment from Brunei”
"But to attain 8 percent GDP in the mid-term basis” such investment is not adequate, it said.
The document mentioned that the government has taken various reforms measures like simplification of the fund release process for accelerating the rate of ADP implementation.
It mentioned that the overall agriculture sector, especially foodgrain, vegetables, livestock and forest resources was less affected due to coronavirus.
It said that disbursement of agriculture loans played an important role in the satisfactory growth of the agriculture sector in Bangladesh.
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Kyiv prepares for worst winter with no heat, water or power
The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country's energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out.
“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations," Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships and “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”
Read more: Russia rejoins key deal on wartime Ukrainian grain exports
Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region.
Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.
Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it's unclear if that would be enough for a city of 3 million people.
As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south. Residents of Ukraine's Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine's military said Sunday. Russian soldiers warned civilians that Ukraine's army was preparing for a massive attack and told people to leave for the city's right bank immediately.
Russian forces are preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion. In September, Russia illegally annexed Kherson as well as three other regions and subsequently declared martial law in the four provinces.
The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city.
Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they're leaving when in fact they're digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine's Southern Forces, told state television.
“There are defense units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up,” she said.
Read more: As winter approaches, Ukraine struggles with power outage
Russian forces are also digging in in a fiercely contested region in the east, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending Ukrainian army following Moscow's illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province.
The attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region's Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three, he reported late Saturday.
“The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” Kyrylenko told state television.
Moscow-backed separatists have controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists' self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.
Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia's launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes hitting more than 35 villages in nine regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to Zelenskyy's office. The strikes killed two people and wounded six.
In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
The front line is now on Bakhmut's outskirts, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military company, are reported to be leading the charge.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the group who has typically remained under the radar, is taking a more visible role in the war. In a statement Sunday he announced the funding and creation of “militia training centers” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in the southwest, saying that locals were best placed to “fight against sabotage” on Russian soil. The training centers are in addition to a military technology center the group said it was opening in St. Petersburg.
In Kharkiv, officials were working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor's office, told local media.
DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said.
In one sliver of good news, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling systems, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.
Russian envoy hopes war in Ukraine ends soon: Hasan
Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander Vikentyevich Mantytskiy has hoped that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war would end soon, Information Minister Hasan Mahmud said Wednesday.
The minister said this to reporters after a meeting with the Russian envoy at the secretariat in Dhaka.
"I informed him about our position on the war saying: 'war does not bring any good to anyone; sanctions and counter-sanctions also don't bring any good.' I told him that it would be good for all if the war ends soon,"
Vikentyevich Mantytskiy hoped that the war would end soon, Hasan, also Awami League joint general secretary, said.
Read more: From 'strong to stronger': Russian House director for elevated Dhaka-Moscow ties
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between state-owned news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) and ITAR-TASS to exchange news in 2017.
The envoy proposed turning the MoU into an agreement, Hasan said.
He also proposed the exchange of news between the Russian news agency Sputnik and BSS.
The information minister said the Russian envoy proposed airing Russian series on Bangladeshi TV channels, he added. "I suggested he give proposals to the country's private TV channels."
Read more: Documentary film on Dhaka-Moscow ties premieres
Russia rejoins key deal on wartime Ukrainian grain exports
Diplomatic efforts salvaged a wartime agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to reach world markets, with Russia saying Wednesday it would stick to the deal after Ukraine pledged not to use a designated Black Sea corridor to attack Russian forces.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine formally committed to use the established safe shipping corridor between southern Ukraine and Turkey “exclusively in accordance with the stipulations” of the agreement.
“The Russian Federation believes that the guarantees it has received currently appear sufficient, and resumes the implementation of the agreement,” the ministry said, adding that mediation by the United Nations and Turkey secured Russia’s continued cooperation.
Russia suspended its participation in the grain deal over the weekend, citing allegations of a Ukrainian drone attack against its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Ukraine did not claim responsibility for the attack, which some Ukrainian officials blamed on Russian soldiers mishandling their own weapons.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the renewed deal would again come on stream Wednesday, prioritizing shipments to African nations, including Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan. That’s in line with Russia’s concerns that most of the exported grain had ended up in richer nations since Moscow and Kyiv made separate agreements with Turkey and the U.N. in July.
Read more:As winter approaches, Ukraine struggles with power outage
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Monday that 23% of the total cargo exported from Ukraine under the grain deal went to lower or lower-middle income countries, which also received 49% of all wheat shipments.
The U.N. and Turkey brokered separate deals with Russia and Ukraine in July to ensure Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia would receive grain and other food from the Black Sea region during Russia’s now eight-month-old war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia are key global exporters of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to developing countries where many are already struggling with hunger. A loss of those supplies before the grain deal pushed up global food prices and helped throw tens of millions into poverty, along with soaring energy costs.
The grain agreement brought down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N. Losing Ukrainian shipments would have meant poorer countries paying more to import grain in a tight global market as places like Argentina and the United States deal with dry weather, analysts say.
After the announcement of Russia rejoining the deal, wheat futures prices erased the increases seen Monday, dropping more than 6% in Chicago.
At least a third of the grain shipped in the last three months was going to the Middle East and North Africa, while plenty of corn was sent to traditional buyer Europe, said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.
He added that more wheat was going to sub-Saharan Africa and Asian markets that have become increasingly important buyers of Ukrainian grain.
Meanwhile in Ukraine, thousands of homes in the Kyiv region and elsewhere remained without power, officials said Wednesday, as Russian drone and artillery strikes continued to target the country’s energy infrastructure.
Read more:Russia halts grain deal over Ukrainian drone attack
Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kukeba said 16,000 homes were without electricity and drones attacked energy facilities in the Cherkasy region south of the capital, prompting power outages.
Although power and water were restored to the city of Kyiv, Kuleba didn’t rule out electricity shortages lasting “weeks” if Russian forces continue to hit energy facilities there. In a Telegram post, he accused Russian forces of trying to prompt a serious humanitarian crisis.
Power outages were also reported in the southern cities of Nikopol and Chervonohryhorivka following “a large-scale drone attack,” Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.
The two cities are located across the Dniper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility. Russia and Ukraine have for months traded blame for shelling at and around the plant that the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog warned could cause a radiation emergency.
In a development easing such fears, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said the Zaporizhzha plant has been reconnected to the country’s power grid after Russian shelling forced the facility to rely on generators to cool its spent nuclear fuel.
Energoatom’s press service told the Associated Press in a written statement that some of the eight power lines serving the Russian-held plant have been restored, but wouldn’t specify the number citing fears of renewed Russian shelling.
With its six reactors inoperative, the plant relies on outside electricity to cool its spent fuel. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree transferring the plant to Russian ownership, Ukrainian staff continues to run it.
Energoatom has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Russian from the plant and for the creation of a demilitarized zone around it.
The company also said Russian soldiers have cordoned off the plant’s spent nuclear fuel storage facility and began unspecified construction there. It alleged that inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, who have been present at the site since early September have been barred from the area.
“The Russians are building incomprehensible things at the nuclear fuel storage facility. They don’t let anyone in, they don’t report anything,” the company said.
On a visit to Kyiv Wednesday, Spain’s Foreign Minister José Albares pledged a new military aid package to help Ukraine’s air defenses. Speaking after talks with Kuleba, Albares didn’t disclose specifics about the arms or when they’ll be delivered, citing security concerns.
Continued Russian shelling across nine regions in southern and eastern Ukraine caused at least four civilian deaths and wounded 17 others between Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The shelling also pounded cities and villages retaken by Ukraine last month in the northeastern Kharkiv region, wounding seven people.
Russian fire damaged a hospital and apartment buildings in the Donetsk region city of Toretsk. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Wednesday Ukrainian and Russian forces continued to fight for control of the cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, both key targets of a Russian offensive in the region.
In southern Ukraine, Russian-installed authorities in the occupied Kherson region relocated civilians some 90 kilometers (56 miles) further into Russian-held territory in anticipation of a major Ukrainian counterattack to recapture the provincial capital of the same name. Russian forces dug trenches to prepare for the expected ground assault.
The Kherson region’s Kremlin-appointed officials on Tuesday expanded an evacuation area to people living within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of the Dnieper River. They said 70,000 residents from the expanded evacuation zone would be relocated this week, doubling the number moved earlier.
Russia halts grain deal over Ukrainian drone attack
Russia announced Saturday that it will immediately suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices. Ukraine accused Russia of creating a world "hunger games.”
The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.
The Russian declaration came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal, which was scheduled to expire on Nov. 19. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.
The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July — helps "to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.
U.N. officials were in touch with Russian authorities over the announced suspension.
“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said Guterres' spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Russian move “predictable.” He accused Moscow of “blockading” ships carrying grain since September. Currently, he said, 176 vessels are backed up at sea, carrying more than 2 million tons of food.
“This is a transparent attempt by Russia to return to the threat of large-scale famine in Africa and Asia,” Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly video address. He called for a tough response against Russia from international bodies like the U.N. and the G-20.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by imperiling global food shipments.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the suspension was regrettable and urged “all parties to keep this essential, life-saving Initiative functioning.”
“Any act by Russia to disrupt these critical grain exports is essentially a statement that people and families around the world should pay more for food or go hungry,” Blinken said in a statement Saturday night. “In suspending this arrangement, Russia is again weaponizing food in the war it started, directly impacting low- and middle-income countries and global food prices, and exacerbating already dire humanitarian crises and food insecurity.”
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged attack by drones on Russian ships in Crimea. Britain’s Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the claim.
“In connection with the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the Black Sea initiative, and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period,'' the Russian statement said.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure said that Ukraine has never threatened the Black Sea grain corridor which “is exclusively humanitarian in nature,” and would continue to try to keep shipments going. It said since the first ship left Odesa on Aug. 1, more than 9 million tons of food have been exported, including more than 5 million tons to African and Asian countries. As part of the U.N. World Food Program, it said, 190 thousand tons of wheat have been sent to countries where there is hunger.
Russia also requested a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council because of the alleged attack on the Black Sea Fleet and the security of the grain corridor, said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy representative to the U.N.
Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow stands ready to “fully replace Ukrainian grain and deliver supplies at affordable prices to all interested countries.” In remarks carried by the state Rossiya 24 TV channel, Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow was prepared to “supply up to 500,000 tons of grain to the poorest countries free of charge in the next four months,” with the help of Turkey.
Earlier Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered differing versions on the Crimea drone attack in which at least one Russian ship suffered damage in Sevastopol, a key port on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged pre-dawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The ministry claimed Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones.
The governor of the Sevastopol region, Mikhail Razvozhaev, claimed the port saw a “massive attack” by air and sea drones. He provided no evidence, saying all video would be seized for security reasons.
But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.
In other developments on Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine's southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian officials said as their forces fought to retake the province.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region have urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region's capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands who have fled to other Russia-held areas.
Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.
“The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything," Zelenskyy said.
Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
As Kyiv's forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up its shelling and missile attacks in the country's east. Three more civilians died and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut, an important target in Russia's stalled eastern offensive.
Russian shelling also hit an industrial building in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region.
In the latest prisoner exchange, 50 Ukrainian soldiers, including two former defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, and two civilians were released Saturday as part of a swap with Russia, who received 50 Russian soldiers, both sides reported.
UN nuclear agency to probe Russia claim of `dirty bombs'
The U.N. nuclear chief said Thursday he is sending inspectors to two locations in Ukraine where Russia alleged that activities related to the possible production of “dirty bombs” was taking place and expects them to reach a conclusion “in days — very fast.”
Rafael Grossi said inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency would be traveling this week to the two sites, which are under IAEA safeguards, following a written request from the Ukrainian government.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador alleged in a letter to Security Council members this week that Ukraine’s Institute for Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv and Vostochniy Mining and Processing Plant “have received direct orders from (President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy’s regime to develop such a dirty bomb.”
The envoy, Vassily Nebenzia, said that information was from Russia’s Ministry of Defense. He said the ministry reported that work on a dirty bomb, which uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror, is “at their concluding stage.”
Grossi said: “The purpose of this week’s safeguards visits is to detect any possible undeclared nuclear activities and materials related to the development of `dirty bombs.’”
The IAEA inspected the nuclear research institute in Kyiv a month ago “and no undeclared nuclear activities or materials were found there,” he said.
But Grossi said the inspectors are going to revisit the facility with a different aim.
Normally inspectors look for nuclear material such as enriched uranium, plutonium and thorium, he said, but in this case “there is mention of certain isotopes, cesium and strontium. So, we are going to be performing a different kind of work to determine whether the fuel there has been reprocessed in some way to extract this.”
Grossi came to U.N. headquarters in New York to brief Security Council members behind closed doors on nuclear issues related to Ukraine. The IAEA earlier issued a statement from him and he spoke to reporters after the council meeting.
Russia's Nebenzia said he told Grossi that “he should be vigilant" because the two sites are not the only places where dirty bombs can be produced.
Grossi said he remains “extremely concerned” about the possibility of a nuclear accident.
He said that in the coming weeks the IAEA is going to be deploying more experts at other nuclear power plants in Ukraine — Rivni, Khmelnytskyi South Ukraine and Chernobyl. The latter was the scene of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986, and it was occupied by Russian forces soon after their Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, though they left at the beginning of April.
The nuclear issue was heightened by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s unsubstantiated allegation that Ukraine was preparing to launch a dirty bomb in weekend calls to his British, French, Turkish and U.S. counterparts. Britain, France and the United States rejected the claim out of hand, calling it “transparently false.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated the unsubstantiated claim on Wednesday,
Ukraine dismissed Moscow’s claim as an attempt to distract attention from the Kremlin’s own alleged plans to detonate a dirty bomb.
Energoatom, the Ukrainian state enterprise that operates the country’s four nuclear power plants, said Russian troops have carried out secret construction work over the last week at the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russian officers controlling the area won’t give access to Ukrainian staff running the plant or monitors from the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog that would allow them to see what the Russians are doing, Energoatom said in a statement Tuesday.
Grossi said in the statement that nuclear safety and security at Zaporizhzhia “remains precarious” and engineers have been working “to stabilize the plant’s fragile external power supplies following repeated outages earlier this month that forced it to temporarily rely on its emergency diesel generators for electricity.”
The IAEA chief said he made clear that he considers Zaporizhzhia “a Ukrainian plant” and expressed concern at possibe confusion about the chain of command following Russia’s announcement that it has taken control of the facility.
This “could negatively affect nuclear safety and security,” Grossi's statement said, pointing to plans by senior Ukrainian operating staff to restart a reactor unit that remain on hold because Russian officials haven’t agreed.
Grossi reiterated that establishing a protection zone around Zaporizhzhia “remains of paramount importance.”
He said his consultations “are making progress, although not as fast as I would like,” pointing to the need for agreement on technical and other parameters of the zone.
“I hope to be able to do it in a matter of days if possible,” he said. “I will keep on pushing.”
Zaporizhzhia has seen repeated shelling, which Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of carrying out.
Russia threatens West's satellites
Ukrainian forces attacked Russia’s hold on the southern city of Kherson on Thursday while fighting also intensified in the country’s east. The battles came amid reports that Moscow-appointed authorities in Kherson have fled the city, joining tens of thousands of residents who have been evacuated to other Russia-held areas.
Ukrainian forces were surrounding Kherson from the west and attacking Russia’s foothold on the west bank of the Dnieper River, which divides the region and the country.
Amid the battles, Russia issued a warning that the United States could be drawn into the conflict, adding it could target Western commercial satellites used for military purposes in support of Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the United States of pursuing “thoughtless and mad” escalation. She argued that Washington should take a more responsible approach shown during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis ‒ when the Cold War superpowers stepped back from the brink of nuclear confrontation.
Ukraine has pushed ahead with an offensive to reclaim the Kherson region and its capital of the same name, which Russian forces captured during the first days of a war now in its ninth month.
More than 70,000 residents from the Kherson city area have evacuated in recent days, the region’s Kremlin-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, said Thursday.
Members of the Russia-backed regional administration were included in the evacuation, the deputy governor, Kirill Stremousov said. Monuments to Russian heroes were moved, along with the remains of Grigory Potemkin, the Russian general who founded Kherson in the 18th century, that were kept at the city’s St. Catherine’s Church.
In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces continued to bombard the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, making slow gains toward the center.
Amid the heavy combat on two fronts, Russian officials stepped up warns that the West could become part of the conflict.
“The more the U.S. is drawn into supporting the Kyiv regime on the battlefield, the more they risk provoking a direct military confrontation between the biggest nuclear powers fraught with catastrophic consequences,” said Zakharova, the Russian Foreign ministry spokeswoman.
“Washington now keeps upping the ante, apparently believing that it’s capable of controlling the escalation,” she said.
Read: Russia conducts first nuclear drill since start of Ukraine war
The deputy head of Russia’s delegation at a U.N. arms control panel, Konstantin Vorontsov, described the use of U.S. and other Western commercial satellites for military purposes during the fighting in Ukraine as “extremely dangerous.”
“The quasi-civilian infrastructure could be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Vorontsov warned.
As they have all month, Russian forces carried out attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, which have caused increasing worry ahead of winter.
A Russian drone attack early Thursday hit an energy facility near the capital of Kyiv, causing a fire, said Kyiv regional Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba. He said the latest attacks inflicted “very serious damage.”
“The Russians are using drones and missiles to destroy Ukraine’s energy system ahead of the winter and terrorize civilians,” Kuleba said in televised remarks.
Kuleba announced new rolling blackouts and urged consumers to save power. He said authorities were still pondering over specifics of the blackouts needed to restore the damaged power facilities.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said rolling blackouts would also be introduced in the neighboring Chernihiv, Cherkasy and Zhytomyr regioms.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said earlier that Russian attacks have already destroyed 30% of the country’s energy infrastructure.
In a likely response to Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, a power plant was attacked just outside Sevastopol, a port in the Russian-annexed region of Crimea. The plant suffered minor damage in a drone attack, according to city leader Mikhail Razvozhayev. He said electricity supplies were uninterrupted.
Crimea, a region slightly larger than Sicily, was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. It has faced drone attacks and explosions amid the fighting in Ukraine. In a major setback for Russia, a powerful truck bomb blew up a section of a strategic bridge linking Crimea to Russia’s mainland on Oct. 8.
A senior Ukrainian military officer accused Russia of planning to stage explosions at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and blame them on Ukraine in a false flag attack.
Read: Russian authorities advise Kherson residents to leave Ukraine region
Gen. Oleksii Gromov, the chief of the main operational department of the Ukrainian military’s general staff, pointed to Moscow’s repeated unfounded allegations that Ukraine was plotting to detonate a radioactive dirty bomb as a possible signal that Moscow was planning explosions at the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
Russia took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant in the opening days of the invasion. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of attacking the plant, whose reactors were shut down following continuous shelling.
Gromov also charged Thursday that Russian forces may have staged explosions at residential buildings in the city of Kherson before retreating from the city “to inflict a critical damage to the infrastructure of the areas being reclaimed by Ukraine.”
The war in Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis is likely to cause global demand for fossil fuels to peak or flatten out, according to a report released Thursday by the Paris-based International Energy Agency, largely due to the fall in Russian exports.
“Today’s energy crisis is delivering a shock of unprecedented breadth and complexity,” the IEA said, releasing its annual report, the World Energy Outlook.
The report said this was forcing the world’s more advanced economies to accelerate structural changes toward renewable energy sources.
Russian authorities advise Kherson residents to leave Ukraine region
Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.
In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration strongly urged civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged plans for “terror attacks” by Kyiv.
Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.
On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces' resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city.
The Ukrainian military has reclaimed broad areas in the north of the region since launching a counteroffensive in late August. It reported new successes Saturday, saying that Russian troops were forced to retreat from the villages of Charivne and Chkalove in the Beryslav district.
Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.
The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army's general staff.
The wide Dnieper River figures as a major factor in the fighting, making it hard for Russia to supply its troops defending the city of Kherson and nearby areas on the west bank after relentless Ukrainian strikes rendered the main crossings unusable.
Taking control of Kherson has allowed Russia to resume fresh water supplies from the Dnieper to Crimea, which were cut by Ukraine after Moscow's annexation of the Black Sea peninsula. A big hydroelectric power plant upstream from Kherson city is a key source of energy for the southern region. Ukraine and Russia accused each other of trying to blow it up to flood the mostly flat region.
Kherson's Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Vladimir Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”
Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that around 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.
“People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said, adding that some residents could be waiting for the Ukrainian army to reclaim the city.
Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.
Ukrainian officials urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.
Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.
Ukraine's air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack" targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later said that Russian launched 36 missiles, most of which were shot down.
“Those treacherous blows on critically important facilities are characteristic tactics of terrorists,” Zelenskyy said. “The world can and must stop this terror.”
Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.
“Several rockets” targeting Ukraine's capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.
The president's office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv. Similar reports came from the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.
Ukraine's top diplomat said the day's attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”
“Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.
Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.
In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”
The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal, saying that power in the city was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities and damaged one power plant beyond repair.
The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power plant.
Ukraine's state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine." It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow's first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.
Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.
Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine's power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on Oct. 10.
In a separate development, Russian officials said two people were killed and 12 others were wounded by Ukrainian shelling of the town of Shebekino in the Belgorod region near the border.
Austerity is on but people will get electricity: PM
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (October 19, 2022) said that the government has imposed austerity in some areas, but that does not mean people of Bangladesh will not get electricity.
“People are getting electricity and that will continue, but we all have to maintain austerity… we are maintaining austerity in some cases. We are compelled to do so under the circumstances,” she said.
The Prime Minister said this while inaugurating the installation of a reactor pressure vessel at the second unit of the 2,400 MW Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant (RNPP).
She joined the programme virtually from her official residence Ganabhaban while it was held at Ishwardi in Pabna.
The prime minister said the government’s target was to provide electricity for all.
“We have kept our promise. We have been able to provide electricity to every house in Bangladesh. And we have succeeded in illuminating Bangladesh,” she said.
In this connection, she said problems erupted due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war.
Read: PM inaugurates installation of 2nd reactor at Rooppur nuclear power plant
“…Prices were hiked in every sphere, including transportation. As a result, developed countries are facing various problems. They have also focused on savings in every sphere of life. We are not lagging behind either…. The world is now a global village, and one is dependent on other. When the entire world is suffering from economic recession, we will have to endure that blow too,” she observed.
“We have also initiated austerity measures,” she said.
“That, however, does not mean people of the country will not get electricity.”
PM Hasina said Bangladesh sets an example in the world in the use of nuclear power for development and peaceful purpose.
She said the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant project is being implemented ensuring overall safety. Once the project is fully implemented, Bangladesh would march further ahead, she added.
Read Power crisis: Parts of Dhaka to experience up to 8-hour load shedding
The PM said that the nuclear power plant project will play a pivotal role in establishing a developed and prosperous Bangladesh through implementation of the long-term perspective plan for 2021-2041.
She described electricity generated from nuclear power plant as “environment friendly”.
She hoped that the first unit of Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant will come into operation next year, while the second unit will begin electricity generation in 2024 and a total of 2400 MW of electricity will be generated from the two units together.
She said that Bangladesh has already been recognised as a developing country because of tireless efforts of her government.
Highlighting success stories of her government over the last three terms, Hasina extended her thanks and gratitude to all concerned, particularly the Russian engineers and Bangladeshi experts and scientists working in the nuclear power project.
Science and Technology Minister Yeafesh Osman, Director General of Russia’s Rosatom State Corporation Alexey Likhachev and Senior Secretary of the Ministry of Science and Technology Ziaul Hasan also spoke at the event. A documentary on the 2,400 MW Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant was also screened at the programme.
Putin says “doesn’t regret starting conflict and didn’t set out to destroy Ukraine”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he expects his mobilization of army reservists for combat in Ukraine to be completed in about two weeks, allowing him to end an unpopular and chaotic call-up meant to counter Ukrainian battlefield gains and solidify his illegal annexation of occupied territory.
Putin — facing domestic discontent and military setbacks in a neighboring country armed with increasingly advanced Western weapons — also told reporters he does not regret starting the conflict and “did not set out to destroy Ukraine” when he ordered Russian troops to invade nearly eight months ago.
“What is happening today is unpleasant, to put it mildly,” he said after attending a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Kazakhstan’s capital. “But we would have had all this a little later, only under worse conditions for us, that’s all. So my actions are correct and timely.”
Russia’s difficulties in achieving its war aims have become apparent in one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin illegally claimed as Russian territory last month. Anticipating an advance by Ukrainian forces, Moscow-installed authorities in the Kherson region urged residents to flee Friday.
Even some of Putin’s own supporters have criticized the Kremlin’s handling of the war and mobilization, increasing pressure on him to do more to turn the tide in Russia’s favor.
In his comments on the army mobilization, Putin said the action he ordered last month had registered 222,000 of the 300,000 reservists the Russian Defense Ministry set as an initial goal. A total of 33,000 of them have joined military units, and 16,000 are deployed for combat, he said.
Putin ordered the call-up to bolster the fight along a 1,100-km (684-mile) front line where Ukrainian counteroffensives have inflicted blows to Moscow’s military prestige. The mobilization was troubled from the start, with confusion about who was eligible for the draft in a country where almost all men under age 65 are registered as reservists.
Opposition to the order was so strong that tens of thousands of men left Russia, and others protested in the streets. Critics were skeptical the draft would end in two weeks. They predicted only a pause to allow enlistment offices to process regular conscripts during Russia’s annual fall draft for men aged 18-27, which was postponed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 1.
“Do not believe Putin about ‘two weeks.’ Mobilization can only be canceled by his decree. No decree - no cancellation,” Vyacheslav Gimadi, an attorney for imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, wrote on Facebook.
Asked about the possibility of an expanded mobilization, the Russian president said the Defense Ministry had not asked him to authorize one.
“Nothing further is planned,” Putin said, adding, ”In the foreseeable future, I don’t see any need.”
Putin and other officials stated in September the mobilization would affect some 300,000 people, but his enabling decree did not cite a specific number. Russian media reports have suggested it could be as high as 1.2 million.
Putin had also said only those with combat or service experience would be drafted. He later admitted military officials had made mistakes, such as enlisting reservists without the relevant background. Men who received minimal training decades ago were drafted in droves.
Reports also have surfaced that some recruits were sent to the front lines in Ukraine with little preparation and inadequate equipment. Several mobilized reservists were reported to have died in combat in Ukraine this week, just days after they were drafted.
Putin responded to the criticism Friday, saying all activated recruits should receive adequate training and that he would assign Russia’s Security Council “to conduct an inspection of how mobilized citizens are being trained.”
Before launching the invasion on Feb. 24, Putin questioned Ukraine’s right to exist as a sovereign nation, portraying the country as part of historic Russia. Asked about this on Friday, he repeated his claim that Russia was prepared for peace talks and again accused the Ukrainian government of quitting negotiations after Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv early in the war.
Ukraine rejected any possibility of negotiating with Putin after he illegally annexed Ukraine’s Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions last month based on “referendums” that Kyiv and the West denounced as a sham.
The battlefield momentum has shifted toward Ukraine as its military recaptures cities, towns and villages that Russia took early in the war. After occupied Kherson’s worried Kremlin-backed leaders asked civilians to evacuate to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability, Moscow offered free accommodations.
Russia has characterized the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory as voluntary, but in many cases they aren’t allowed to travel to Ukrainian-held territory, and reports have surfaced that some were forcibly deported to “filtration camps” with harsh conditions.
An Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children — some orphaned, others living with foster families or in institutions — to be raised as Russian.
Ukrainian forces reported retaking 75 populated places in northern Kherson in the last month, according to Ukraine’s Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories. A similar campaign in eastern Ukraine resulted in most of the Kharkiv region returning to Ukrainian control, as well as parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the ministry said.
As they retreat, Russian forces are adding to their losses by abandoning weapons and ammunition. In the U.S., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence presented a slide deck Friday stating that at least 6,000 pieces of Russian equipment have been lost since the start of the war. The presentation outlines enormous pressure on Russia’s defense industry to replace its losses and says that because of export controls and international sanctions, Russia is expending munitions at an unsustainable rate.
Konstantin, a Kherson resident who spoke to the AP only if his last name was withheld for safety reasons, said columns of military trucks had moved around the region’s capital and eventually left. Most government offices have reduced working hours, and schools have closed, he said.
“The city is now in suspense. Primarily the Russian military from the headquarters and the family of collaborators are leaving,” Konstantin said. “Everyone is discussing the imminent arrival of the Ukrainian military and preparing for it.”
Russian forces on Friday carried out missile strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and in the Zaphorizhzhia region, home to Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has warned that fighting at or near the Russian-controlled Zaphorizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, now shuttered, could trigger a catastrophic radiation release.
Putin has vowed to retaliate if Ukraine or its allies strike Russian territory, including the annexed regions of Ukraine. Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine came under attack for a second day Friday. According to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the shelling damaged an electric substation, five houses in the village of Voznesenovka and a power line, leaving several nearby villages temporarily without electricity. No casualties or injuries were reported.
Ukrainian shelling blew up an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region on Thursday, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee. Unconfirmed media reports said three Russian National Guard officers were killed and more than 10 were wounded.
Vowing to liberate all Russian-occupied areas, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhny, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said in a video message Friday, “We have buried the myth of the invincibility of the Russian army.”