June 13, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said he is "very concerned" that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could be caught up in Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia.

The plant is very close to active fighting, "so we are worrying that there could be — I mean, obviously, mathematically — the possibilities of a hit,” International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said.

Speaking in Kyiv after a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Grossi said that the IAEA is trying to “prevent something bad” and that it is still a “relatively dangerous situation.”

Zelensky said they discussed ways to “minimize risks and prevent incidents.” 

“The Head of State reiterated that the only way to prevent a nuclear incident at Zaporizhzhia NPP was its full demilitarisation, de-occupation and restoration of control over the plant by Ukraine,” according to a readout of the meeting from Zelensky’s office.

Ahead of his visit to the plant, the IAEA chief said that he will be at the facility for a few hours. There is a rotation of IAEA experts who are returning to Vienna and being replaced with a fresh group, he said. 

On Sunday, the IAEA said it needed access to a location near the Zaporizhzhia plant to measure water levels at the Nova Kakhovka reservoir pumping position.

This is critical because the reservoir, which supplies cooling water to the nuclear plant and is crucial for its safety, lost a large portion of water after the dam collapsed last week. The IAEA said it will need to determine exactly how much water was lost.

Zelensky said he supported Grossi's proposal to send a group of IAEA experts to assess the consequences of the explosion of the Kakhovka dam “and prepare proposals for specific areas of assistance to overcome them.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $325 million security assistance for Ukraine on Tuesday.

The latest package — the 40th presidential drawdown — includes “critical air defense capabilities, additional munitions for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, artillery rounds, anti-tank weapons, armored vehicles, and other equipment essential to strengthening Ukraine’s forces on the battlefield,” Blinken said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the US for the latest security assistance package in a tweet on Tuesday.

“Thank you @POTUS for another package of defense assistance,” he tweeted, “Weapons and military equipment worth $325 million is exactly what the [Ukrainian] Defense Forces need today. We appreciate the unwavering support of the friendly [American] people. And effective assistance in liberating the territories temporarily occupied by the Russian aggressor. Together we will restore Ukraine's territorial integrity, preserve its independence and protect its democracy.”

There is no need to introduce martial law or additional mobilization of Russian troops for now, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday. 

The Russian president said about 156,000 troops have been added since January, which includes contract servicemen who were recruited and others who volunteered.

He also said that while the work of law enforcement and special services needed improvement, there is no need to introduce martial law throughout Russia.

A "digital information manipulation campaign" is spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine across a network of social media, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday.

The campaign uses fake internet pages mimicking media and government sites and hundreds of fake web URLs on social media — shared by official Russian state accounts — to spread disinformation about the war, according to a report by France’s Surveillance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference Service (VIGINUM), the ministry said.

The campaign's principal goal is to use "false and underhand tactics" to discredit Western policies on topics related to the war, including arms, refugees, and sanctions, the VIGINUM report said.

Here's a snapshot of the report's findings:

The report links several Russian citizens, who it says were responsible for setting up the fake URLs, to the campaign. It added that the campaign remains active despite its prior exposure and measures taken by Meta and Twitter. 

Russian missiles hit the central city of Kryvyi Rih early Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, according to Ukrainian authorities.

The overnight missile attack by Russia struck an apartment building in the city, according to Ukrainian authorities.

“The search and rescue operation has been completed. The dismantling of the structures is underway,” said Serhii Lysak, head of Dnipropetrovsk region military administration.

Here are more of the latest headlines:

Here's the latest map of control:

The Russian Ministry of Defense on Tuesday claimed to have repelled Ukrainian attacks near the southern Donetsk villages of Rivnopil, Makarivka and Prechystivka. 

The villages are close to the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, where both Russia and Ukraine have reported clashes. 

“Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian troops continued to attempt to carry out an offensive in South Donetsk direction,” according to the Russian ministry's daily briefing on Tuesday.

The contested village is reported to have changed hands several times.

Two attacks near Rivnopil and another attack near Prechystivka were also repelled, the Russian ministry said.

CNN cannot independently verify battlefield reports.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say fighting is happening Tuesday in the regions' villages of Mala Tokmachka, Novodanylivka, Mariinka, Yahidne and Vesele. 

Deputy Defense Minister of Ukraine Hanna Maliar said Ukrainian troops have made advances in three directions in the past day.

An 11th person has died after an overnight missile attack by Russia on an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Officials said a body was pulled from the rubble by emergency crews.

Further south, in the Kherson region: Russian strikes hit the grounds of a church, killing a 72-year-old priest. A 76-year-old woman was also injured in the same attack, according to Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office.

“Russian strikes damaged four residential buildings, the post office, administrative buildings, the central square and critical infrastructure facilities” in the village of Bilozerka, he added.

Elsewhere: Russian shelling hit Ukraine's northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, three bombs hit the town of Orikhiv, killing one civilian and destroying homes, it added. 

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 10 of 14 cruise missiles fired by Russia in deadly strikes overnight, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Tuesday.

The United Nations said Tuesday that last week's dam breach on the Dnipro River in Ukraine will have a "huge impact on global food security," with food prices likely to increase due to problems with the next harvest in the area.

The Nova Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine collapsed June 6, forcing more than 1,400 people to flee their homes and threatening vital water supplies as flooding inundated the region. 

UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said in an interview with BBC Radio 4 that food prices are "bound to increase" following the dam collapse. 

The critical dam is the largest reservoir in Ukraine in terms of volume. It's the last of the cascade of six Soviet-era dams on the Dnipro River, a major waterway running through southeastern Ukraine.

Griffiths added that there will also be a "drinking water problem," given that 700,000 people depended on the reservoir. "Bad water" leaves people in the region vulnerable to disease, with children particularly at risk, according to Griffiths. 

"Damage of this scale to a civilian infrastructure — and I've said that, as you know, publicly — is completely contrary to international humanitarian law," Griffiths told the BBC. "That's self-evident. Whoever did it has breached the Geneva Conventions."

Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over the Russian-occupied dam's destruction, without providing concrete proof that the other is culpable. It is not yet clear whether the dam was deliberately attacked or whether the breach was the result of structural failure.

Previous reporting from Mariya Knight, Olga Voitovych, Jo Shelley and other CNN staff

Ukraine has not come close to exhausting its capacity to fight Russia, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an interview with Danish media on Tuesday.

The boss of Russian private military company also said he doesn’t know if his force will remain in Ukraine amid a dispute with Russia’s Defense Ministry over contracts.

It comes after the Russian Ministry of Defense announced Saturday that “volunteer units” and private military groups would be required to sign a contract with the ministry, which would “give the voluntary formations the necessary legal status” and create “unified approaches” to their work.

The order did not name the Wagner group, but the move is seen a way of controlling the influential military force. Prigozhin – who has publicly feuded with defense leaders – said the move did not apply to Wagner.