On June 10, Ukraine’s General Staff revealed that severe conflicts were unfolding, with the past day witnessing 34 separate incidents in the eastern industrial regions of the nation.
Ukrainian military authorities reported fierce combat with Russian troops on the same day. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency said it had safely switched off the last functioning reactor at Europe’s largest nuclear power station for safety reasons.
Following a heavy overnight attack by Russian forces employing missiles and drones that resulted in casualties and damage to a military airfield, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unexpectedly visited Kyiv. This marked his second trip to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion in February the previous year. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland accompanied Trudeau.
While providing no specific details, the Ukrainian General Staff declared that Russian forces were engaging in self-defense measures and launching aerial and artillery assaults in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Five out of six reactors were already in a cold shutdown at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under Russian control. In this condition, all control rods are inserted into the reactor core, halting the nuclear fission reaction and stopping the heat and pressure generation.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency, Energoatom, issued a statement late on Friday saying there was no immediate danger to the Zaporizhzhia plant due to a breach in the Kakhovka dam further down the Dnipro River. This incident caused significant flooding, forcing thousands of people to evacuate and substantially decreasing water levels in a reservoir for cooling the plant.
Due to the circumstances created by the dam breach and shelling near the facility that had damaged overhead power lines connecting the plant to the national energy grid, Energoatom confirmed that they had decided to shut down the final reactor.
