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The Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, located 60 kilometers from the nuclear power plant of the same name, was attacked again on Saturday, October 9 at night. The provisional death toll rises to 13 people, according to Ukrainian officials. These new attacks come as Russia has just appointed a new head of what it calls its “special military operation”; General Sergei Sourovikine.
On Saturday night, what would be a new Russian missile attack hit a residential area in the city of Zaporizhia. According to Ukrainian authorities, at least 12 missiles hit, leaving at least 13 dead and about 90 people injured.
kyiv confirmed the shelling on Sunday and reported damage to at least five homes and some 40 buildings.
“It doesn’t make sense. Pure evil. Terrorists and savages. From the one who gave the order to the one who executed it. Everyone has a responsibility. Before the law and before the people,” reacted the Ukrainian president Volodímir Zelenski.
By early Thursday morning, the city had already been hit by seven missiles that killed 17 people. On September 30, another attack in the same city targeted a convoy of cars, killing at least 30 civilians, including children, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Since the beginning of the war, Moscow has occupied the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, located about 60 kilometers from the city and which both armies accuse each other of bombing. On Saturday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that the plant had once again lost its external power source due to the bombing and said emergency generators had been activated.
Moscow appoints a new commander for its “special operation”
The city of Zaporizhia, controlled de facto by the Ukrainian Army, is located in the region of the same name, which Russia has annexed but only partially controls.
At the same time, in a sign of discontent in the upper echelons of Russian power over the conduct of military operations, Moscow announced on Saturday that it had appointed a new strongman to lead its “special military operation” in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin (55 years old).
The general was previously head of the Southern Forces group in Ukraine and had held positions of responsibility in the Syrian war.
The TASS agency reported that the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, General Igor Konashenkov, confirmed in a statement that Surovikin “will lead the combined group of troops in the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine.”
Konashenkov added that “Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the decision to appoint Surovikin to this post,” without revealing the name of his predecessor.
The appointment of the new commander comes hours after Moscow reported the fire of a tanker train caused by a large explosion attributed to a truck bomb on the Crimean bridge, a key and symbolic infrastructure that links Russia with the peninsula annexed in 2014. .
The bridge, with rail and vehicular tracks, is a strategic supply line for Russia to maintain its control over the southern territories of Ukraine.
With AFP and Reuters
