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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has appeared to admit severe losses in Ukraine, conceding the severity of the Kremlin’s recent military reversals and insisting Russia would “stabilise” the situation in four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – it illegally claimed as its own territory last week. “We are working on the assumption that the situation in the new territories will stabilise,” Putin told Russian teachers during a televised video call on Wednesday.
The UN nuclear agency chief is en route to Kyiv to discuss creating a security zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, after Putin ordered his government to take it over. “On our way to Kyiv for important meetings,” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi wrote on Twitter, saying the need for a protection zone around the site was “more urgent than ever”. Grossi is also expected to visit Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation at the plant. The IAEA said it had learned of plans to restart one reactor at the plant, where all six reactors have been shut down for weeks.
Ukraine’s forces are pushing their advance in the east and south, forcing Russian troops to retreat under pressure on both fronts. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s military had made major, rapid advances against Russian forces in the past week, taking back dozens of towns in regions in the south and east that Russia has declared annexed. Military experts say Russia is at its weakest point, partly because of its decision not to mobilise earlier and partly because of massive losses of troops and equipment.
