Home › Politics › Zaporizhzhia plant accusations and strikes on 16 July
Zaporizhzhia plant accusations and strikes on 16 July
Summary
A look back at the claims about the nuclear plant and the attacks on two Ukrainian cities that framed the following day.
What did the reports reaching 17 July 2022 say about the direction of the war? Two sets of claims from 16 July stood out: one about a nuclear power plant, the other about strikes on cities far from the front in the Donbas.
The president of Energoatom, the Ukrainian nuclear energy authority, accused Russian forces of using the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to store weapons and to shell the surrounding area. The accusation put a nuclear facility at the centre of the argument over how the war was being fought.
On the same day, Russian missiles struck the city of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv Oblast, killing three civilians and injuring three others. More than 50 Grad rockets hit the city of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killing two people.
The strikes followed an order from Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu to expand military operations in Ukraine in order to "protect the Donbas". Chuhuiv and Nikopol lie in oblasts outside the Donbas, so the attacks showed civilian areas elsewhere in Ukraine bearing the cost of that order.
Taken together, the reports pointed to a war in which civilian towns and a nuclear site were both under pressure.
