UN urges Russia to leave nuclear plant – DW – 07/12/2024

A court in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region has sentenced an official of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to 14 years in prison on charges of spying for unspecified foreign intelligence services, Russia’s prosecutor general said.

In a statement on the Telegram messaging app, the prosecutor general’s office said Vadym Golda collected information on industrial facilities in the Donetsk region in 2021, which was then used to direct missile strikes on the province.

The Vienna-based OSCE said its leaders “unequivocally condemn” the sentencing as “a grave violation of participating states’ commitments under international law” and called for the release of Golda and two other former OSCE employees jailed by Russia for treason in 2022.

Three Ukrainian nationals who were members of the OSCE special monitoring mission to Ukraine — Golda, Maxim Petrov, and Dmytro Shabanov — have been detained in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine since 2022.

Ukraine’s top prosecutor has called on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Russia over a missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv.

“For the sake of international justice, cases like the intentional attack on the biggest child hospital in Kyiv (are) worth lifting to the ICC,” Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told Reuters news agency in an interview in The Hague, where the ICC is based.

The Ukrainian capital suffered one of its worst days of airstrikes since the war with Russia began on Monday, with attacks across the country killing at least 44 people, including two adults at the Okhmatdy Children’s Hospital, Ukrainian officials have said.

The ICC prosecutor’s office said Tuesday that one of its teams had visited the site of the hospital attack. It warned that anyone found responsible for attacks on civilian targets could be prosecuted. 

A UN rights mission has said it is “highly likely” the hospital was hit directly by a Russian missile. Ukraine’s security service said it had clear evidence that the medical facility was hit by a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile.

Moscow has denied the attack on the hospital and blamed Ukrainian anti-missile fire for hitting the clinic. 

All five Kh-101 cruise missiles and 11 of 19 drones launched by Russia were shot down overnight, the Ukrainian air force said.

Russia’s main target was the town of Starokostiantyniv, a major Ukrainian air base and a frequent target of Moscow’s strikes, according to an air force statement.

“It is likely that the enemy is using imitators of attack drones to overload air defense. There was no information on casualties or damage,” the air force said.

The governors of several targeted regions reported no damage or casualties in their statements Friday morning.

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution Thursday demanding that Russia “urgently withdraw” its military and other unauthorized personnel from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. 

The resolution was co-sponsored by dozens of countries. Ninety-nine of the 193 members of the UN General Assembly voted in favor, nine against and 60 abstained.

The resolution, which is not legally binding, also stated that Moscow must immediately cease its attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The General Assembly reiterated its call for an end to Russia’s aggression against its neighbor and for its withdrawal from Ukraine.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine has a capacity of nearly six gigawatts. It was occupied by Russian troops shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

The plant has been repeatedly hit by shelling, raising international concerns about a possible nuclear accident. Because of the danger, the plant was shut down in September 2022.

dh/sms (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)