RUSSIA: The Russian military ministry said on Thursday that a humanitarian corridor from the besieged city of Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia would open on Friday.
Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, director of Russia’s National Center for Defense Management, stated that Moscow was acting on a request made to President Vladimir Putin by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Meanwhile, senior US officials fanned out throughout the world this week to persuade other countries to join or maintain pressure on Moscow as the Ukrainian conflict approaches its fifth week and the immediate economic shock to Russia appears to be wearing off.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo met with senior officials in London, Brussels, and Paris before concluding the week in Berlin; Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international economics, pressed Indian officials in New Delhi; and Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the Ukraine war with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Morocco.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian national nuclear company announced on Thursday that all Russian forces occupying the Chernobyl nuclear power facility have withdrawn from the plant’s area.
The Russian authorities made no quick comment. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has announced plans to send a mission to the radioactive waste facilities at Chernobyl in northern Ukraine.
Despite the fact that Russian troops took control of Chernobyl soon after the February 24 invasion, the plant’s Ukrainian staff continued to oversee the safe storage of spent nuclear fuel and the concrete-encased remains of the reactor that exploded in 1986, causing the world’s worst nuclear accident.
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