Putin signs decree to increase size of Russian military; 25 confirmed dead after Russian

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke with his French counterpart about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The Kremlin said that French Minister of the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu initiated the call.

“Shoigu delivered his assessments of the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine that can disrupt the safe operation of the plant,” according to a Kremlin readout of the call.

Russian forces took control of the nuclear facility, Europe’s largest, in the days following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In recent days, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling near the Zaporizhzhia plant. Western nations have called on Russia to remove its troops from the facility, citing concerns of a potential nuclear accident.

He told Lecornu that Moscow believed it was important for IAEA inspectors to visit the nuclear facility. 

A French readout of the call was not immediately available.

— Amanda Macias

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to increase the size of the Russian military from 1.9 million to 2.04 million, an announcement on its government web portal said, as the war in Ukraine passes its six-month mark.

The order will be effective January 1 and will see a rise in combat personnel of 137,000 to 1.15 million.

Russia has steadily cast a wider net as to who it’s willing to recruit as conscripts, including prisoners, retired military personnel, older men and those with only a middle-school level education. Putin reportedly expected the invasion, which the Kremlin calls its “special military operation,” to last only a few days before taking the capital Kyiv.

Russia’s military has instead lost several generals and is estimated by U.S. intelligence to have lost around 15,000 servicemen, though Moscow has not released any recent military casualty figures itself.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, said his team is “very, very close” to being able to visit the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been under Russian military occupation since March.

“We are very, very close to that,” Rafael Grossi told French news channel France 24 in an interview, when asked if negotiations to access the facility had achieved anything.

Any operation to inspect the plant would be very complex, Grossi said, but he hoped the visit would be able to happen “within days.”

“We need to go there, we need to stabilize the situation, we need to ensure a presence of the IAEA soon,” Grossi added.

International leaders and organizations have for months sounded the alarm over the risk of a nuclear catastrophe at the plant, which faces regular shelling and is Europe’s largest of its kind.

— Natasha Turak

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant’s two remaining reactors that are still working shut down after nearby fires damaged power lines overhead, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy firm Energoatom said.

The power lines connected the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine — Europe’s largest — to the national grid. Before the Russian invasion and Russian occupation of the facility, it supplied 20% of Ukraine’s power. The fires that damaged the power lines started at a local coal plant in the vicinity, the company said via its official Telegram account.

The plant’s security system is still working as usual and work is being done to re-link one of the reactors to the power grid, the statement added.

— Natasha Turak

National security advisor Jake Sullivan met with Frederic Bernard, the head of the Cabinet to the president of the European Council, in Washington.

“They reaffirmed their commitment to continue supporting Ukraine as it defends its democracy and imposing costs on Russia for its aggression,” according to a White House readout of the meeting.

“They also discussed ongoing U.S. and European Union cooperation on Europe’s energy security as well as the promotion of peace and stability in the Western Balkans and the South Caucasus,” the readout added.

— Amanda Macias

The State Department slammed Moscow’s “so-called tribunals” in the Russian-controlled city of Mariupol.

“The Kremlin is attempting to deflect responsibility for President Putin’s war of aggression and distract from the overwhelming evidence of the atrocities Russian forces have committed in Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Ned Price wrote in a statement.

Price called the trials a “mockery of justice” and called on Moscow to comply with international law.

“All members of Ukraine’s armed forces, including domestic and foreign volunteers incorporated into the armed forces, are entitled to prisoner of war status if they are captured and must be afforded the treatment and protections commensurate with that status, according to the Geneva Conventions,” Price added.

— Amanda Macias

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that so far a total of 769,986 metric tons of grains and other foodstuffs have departed through the humanitarian sea corridor under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

The Joint Coordination Center, or JCC, said that more than 30 ships carrying grains and other crops have left Ukrainian ports.

The JCC also said that it authorized the movement of three outbound merchant vessels to depart from Ukrainian ports.

— Amanda Macias

Twenty-five people are now confirmed dead after a Russian rocket attack on a train station in central Ukraine, according to Ukrainian newspaper the Kyiv Independent.

The strikes took place on Aug. 24, Ukraine’s Independence Day, ahead of which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia may launch a “particularly cruel” attack on the country.

Rockets hit a train and residential areas of the town of Chaplyne in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, regional officials said, initially killing 15 and wounding at least 50. Four trains were set aflame and two children were killed in the attack, according to the presidential office’s deputy head, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted photos of the aftermath of the strikes on his Twitter account, showing burnt-out train cars and structures reduced to rubble.

“Terrorist Russia keeps killing Ukrainian civilians. At least 15 killed in a Russian missile strike on a train station in Chaplyne, Dnipropetrovsk region,” he wrote Wednesday evening.

— Natasha Turak

Concerns continue to mount over the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March.

Ukrainian and Western officials have warned of “false flag” actions by Russia, through which Russian forces may stage an attack and blame it on Ukrainian forces as a justification to escalate action.

“Russia is probably prepared to exploit any Ukrainian military activity near ZNPP for propaganda purposes,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense wrote on its daily intelligence update on Twitter.

“While Russia maintains the military occupation of ZNPP, the principal risks to reactor operations are likely to remain disruption to the reactors’ cooling systems, damage to its back-up power supply, or errors by workers operating under pressure,” the post added.

— Natasha Turak

The U.K. announced a £54 million ($64 million) new weapons package for Ukraine’s Armed Forces that will include 2,000 drones and loitering munitions, a government statement said.

The package includes 850 hand-launched Black Hornet micro-drones, “which are specifically designed for use in towns and villages, and are deployed to detect approaching enemy forces,” the statement said.

Military personnel can learn to fly these drones, which are smaller than a cell phone, in less than 20 minutes, according to the U.K. government.

The U.K. is also set to send Ukraine mine-hunting vehicles to enable it to detect Russian mines in its waters. In the next few weeks, Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training in the U.K. will be taught how to use them in British waters. The U.K. is also expanding its training program for Ukrainian troops.

— Natasha Turak

The organization overseeing the export of agricultural products from Ukraine said that five ships carrying grains and other crops were approved to depart Ukrainian ports Thursday.

The vessel Ascanios is carrying 58,510 metric tons of corn and is destined for Germany. The vessel Mohamad is carrying 11,000 metric tons of wheat and is destined for Israel. The ship named Bellis will also travel to Israel and is carrying 6,000 metric tons of soybeans. The vessel Oris Sofi is transporting 5,900 metric tons of sunflower oil to Turkey. Another ship, Zelek Star is also destined for Turkey and is transporting 3,700 metric tons of peas.

In total, the five vessels are carrying 85,110 metric tons of grain and food products under the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

— Amanda Macias

Europe will not be blackmailed into “offering Ukraine on a silver platter to Putin,” said Former United States Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst when asked if Russia’s weaponization of energy flows through Nord Stream will break Europe’s resolve to continue lending support to Ukraine.

“I believe Europe as a whole will remain supportive of Ukraine and will not be blackmailed by this,” said Herbst, who is now senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “And I believe they’ll make it through the winter albeit with some hardship.”

Herbst added that “the end will come sooner” for Russia’s war in Ukraine if the Biden administration sent more advanced weapons to Ukraine and in greater quantities.

“United States and the West need to provide Ukraine weapons as long as Moscow’s conducting a war of aggression in Ukraine, and this may require many years.”

— Lee Ying Shan

National security council spokesman John Kirby said that U.S. intelligence indicates that Russia may try to hold “sham referendums” as early as this week.

Kirby told reporters that the referendums are a way of Russia trying to show that the Ukrainian people want to become part of Russia. Kirby said that the U.S. believes that the referendums may begin in Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Kirby added that the Biden administration will not view the outcome of the referendum as legitimate.

“Since they obviously are having trouble achieving geographic gains inside Ukraine, they are trying to gain that through false political means,” Kirby told reporters.

“We expect Russia to try to manipulate the results of these referenda, to falsely claim that the Ukrainian people want to join Russia,” he added.

— Amanda Macias

Ukraine’s president says Russian forces have launched a rocket attack on a railroad station in central Ukraine on the country’s Independence Day, killing at least 15 people and wounding about 50.

The lethal strike came after warnings from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in recent days that the Russians might “try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel” this week.

Wednesday is a national holiday in Ukraine commemorating the country’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It also marks the six-month point in the war against Russia.

— Associated Press