“Our colleagues in Ukraine have just told us that there were new attacks today in Poltava, in the center of the country. Initial reports indicate a number of civilian casualties,” he said. told journalists attending his daily briefing at UN headquarters in New York.
At least 50 people were killed and more than 200 injured when two Russian missiles hit a military training center and a nearby hospital in the city, according to media reports.
Kharkov attacks condemned
The attack came in the wake of airstrikes in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on August 30 and September 1. Authorities said six people were killed and 150 people, including 30 children, were wounded.
“Our humanitarian partners on the ground also noted extensive damage to civilian infrastructure,” Mr Dujarric said.
“More than 90 residential buildings, a shopping centre and sports facilities, as well as two educational institutions, were damaged by the attacks.”
Matthias Schmale, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, condemned the repeated attacks.
“Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected in accordance with international humanitarian law,” he said in a proposition.
Other areas under fire
Meanwhile, aid workers in Kharkov immediately took action and provided medical and psychosocial assistance.
More than a dozen non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have delivered repair materials and fixed more than 400 broken windows over the past two days.
Humanitarian workers also noted that other parts of Ukraine – notably the Sumy and Donetsk regions and the Kyiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia areas – also suffered deadly attacks and strikes over the weekend and on Monday.
Support for nuclear safety
Separately, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will increase nuclear security assistance to Ukraine following a series of missile attacks that either directly knocked out multiple nuclear reactors or caused dangerous instability in the national electricity grid.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi announced the development after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the capital Kiev on Tuesday.
A team of experts from the UN agency will soon travel to some of Ukraine’s damaged substations – electrical switching stations that form the backbone of the electricity grid – that have been identified as critical to nuclear safety.
Members assess the situation at the locations and report on possible follow-up actions.
An increasingly vulnerable situation
Mr Grossi stressed that the safety of operating nuclear power plants depends on a stable and reliable connection to the electricity grid.
“As a result of the war, the situation is becoming increasingly fragile and potentially even dangerous in this regard,” he said.
“I agreed with President Zelensky that the IAEA will expand its determined activities to help prevent a nuclear accident during the conflict and will further investigate this important aspect of nuclear safety and security.”
The IAEA has already deployed specialist teams at all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. The substations essential for nuclear safety are located in different parts of the country, making the assessment of these facilities also relevant, the agency added.
Ensuring energy security
Increased pressure on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the past six months has led to instability in the electricity grid, posing serious problems for nuclear power plants.
The widespread strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on August 26 caused major fluctuations in power supply and led to the temporary shutdown or disconnection of reactor units at the Rivne and Southern Ukraine nuclear power plants, one of which is still not fully operational. The off-site power situation at the Khmelnytskyy nuclear power plant and the Chernobyl site was also affected.
Meanwhile, the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, located on the front lines of the conflict, has suffered eight “complete power outages,” temporarily forcing it to rely on diesel generators. The plant lost connection to its only remaining 330-kilovolt (kV) backup power line on Monday night, leaving it reliant on a single 750-kV line.
Mr Grossi will travel to Zaporizhia later this week, his fifth visit to the plant since the start of the large-scale Russian invasion in February 2022. However, he also stressed the risks to nuclear safety and security at other sites in Ukraine.
“The increased vulnerability of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is deeply concerning for the nuclear safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, as we saw last week when several reactors stopped operating due to damage to energy infrastructure elsewhere in the country,” he said.
“It is also of utmost importance for Ukraine’s energy security that the substations can function normally for safety reasons, as the country relies heavily on nuclear power plants for a large part of its electricity generation.”
