July 3, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been reconnected to the backup power line for the first time in four months, the head of the United Nation's nuclear watchdog said Monday.

The power plant, which is the largest in Europe, "reconnected to its only available back-up power line four months after it was lost, but the site’s power situation remains extremely fragile during the ongoing military conflict and is not sustainable," Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a statement.

Energoatom, the company that runs nuclear power plants in Ukraine added before the backup power supply was restored "Zaporizhzhia NPP was 'hanging' on only one line of connection with the national power grid and experienced seven complete blackouts."

More background: The IAEA has raised concerns as to the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, previously describing the situation as “increasingly unpredictable." It has frequently been disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid due to intense Russian shelling, repeatedly raising fears across Europe of a nuclear accident.

The plant is currently held by Russian forces but mostly operated by a Ukrainian workforce. It is also significant because Ukraine relies heavily on nuclear power. Ukraine would lose 20% of its domestic electricity-generating capacity if Russia kept it.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held a telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday to discuss the “political, military, and humanitarian situation in Ukraine,” according to a spokesperson for the German government.

German spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said in a news release that Scholz and Zelensky called for the extension of the United Nations Ukraine grain agreement, which is due to expire on July 17.

Zelensky said he had a "long and fruitful phone call" with Scholz. In addition to discussing the grain deal, the Ukrainian president said on his Telegram channel that the two leaders also talked about the situation on the battlefield.

Some background: The grain agreement was initially signed in 2022, allowing grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. On May 17th, when the deal was last set to expire, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the deal would be extended for two more months.

Why this matters: Ukraine is a major supplier of grain to the World Food Programme (WFP). According to the European Commission, Ukraine accounts for 10% of the world wheat market, 15% of the corn market, and 13% of the barley market. It is also a key global player in the market of sunflower oil.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a UN body, warned at the time that as many as 47 million people could be pushed into “acute food insecurity” because of the war.

CNN's Sophie Tanno contributed reporting to this post.

A couple in their fifties were wounded in a Russian attack on a village in the Kherson region Monday in southern Ukraine, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said in a Telegram post.

Shelling hit near a local church, the official added.

"Two people were wounded in the shelling — a 59-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman. Both of the wounded were hospitalized and are receiving treatment from doctors," the post said.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, local officials said a Russian drone attack hit the northeastern city of Sumy, killing at least two people.

The US ambassador to Russia has met with jailed US reporter Evan Gershkovich according to his employer, the Wall Street Journal. 

The WSJ said it is the second time Gershkovich has been granted consular access to Ambassador Lynne Tracy since he was detained in March.

Jenny Palmer, the spokesperson for the US Embassy in Moscow, confirmed to CNN that the meeting had occurred.

Last month, a Russian court upheld his extended detention in a Moscow prison until at least the end of August. 

More context: Russia’s main security service, the FSB, has claimed that Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, had been trying to obtain state secrets.

His arrest in March was the first detention of an American reporter in Russia on allegations of spying since the Cold War, rattling White House officials and further straining ties between Moscow and Washington.

The US State Department has officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia. US President Joe Biden has also been blunt about Gershkovich’s arrest, urging Russia to “let him go."

CNN's Anna Chernova, Sophie Tanno and Jo Shelley contributed reporting to this post. 

At least two people were killed in a Russian drone attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, the regional military administration reported in an update on Monday. 

“There are 4 injured people who remain in healthcare facilities, 2 of them are in intensive care, and the other 2 are in condition of moderate severity,” the administration added. 

There was a five-year-old child among the injured, according to the administration.

Ukraine has charged Oleh Kulinich, the former head of the Crimean Department of the country's security service (SBU), with five offenses related to spying for Russia. 

The SBU said Monday it has submitted an indictment for Kulinich on the charges of high treason, weapons charges, theft, leadership of a criminal enterprise and unauthorized leaving of a military unit.

He was arrested a year ago after a special operation by the SBU and the State Bureau of Investigation and has been in custody since. 

Kulinich is suspected of collaborating with the Russian security services and received the operational nickname "Kotyhoroshko."

Four Russian attack drones hit the centre of the northeastern city of Sumy, hitting two residential apartment blocks and an administrative building, according to the Sumy Regional Military authority.

At least one person was killed and at least 16 people were injured in the attack. Rescue and firefighting operations are ongoing, the authority said on telegram. 

Russia is set to hold local elections in the four Ukrainian regions controlled by Moscow, the head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) said Monday.

Voters will elect local governors and other officials in September, Ella Pamfilova told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting. 

The date for those elections is set for September 10, the CEC said on Telegram.

Russia-appointed governors of the four annexed regions, that the West regards as illegal, had put forth an initiative to hold local elections, according to Pamfilova, who added that the initiative was approved after consideration together with the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Russian defense ministry.

“The leaders of all four new subjects — the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions — came to us with an initiative [suggesting] that the need to hold these elections has emerged,” she said.

In September, 41 other regional elections will take place to elect governors, members of legislative assemblies or both across Russia, Pamfilova said. 

Ukraine hopes an international tribunal into alleged Russia’s crimes of aggression can be held based on the work of a new evidence-gathering centre launched Monday. 

Speaking during a news conference marking the centre’s launch in the Hague on Monday, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Andriy Kostin, said he anticipated prosecutors working at the centre will not only gather evidence but also begin building a “prosecutorial strategy” which could be used by a future tribunal. 

Ukraine has already launched criminal proceedings in domestic courts for Russian crimes of aggression, according to Kostin, adding that 312 indictments have already been issued. 

The EU also expressed support for an international tribunal despite the bloc’s Justice Commissioner, Didier Reynders, telling journalists that the first preference remains to amend existing treaty, the Rome Statute so that Russia’s crimes of aggression in Ukraine could be tried before the International Criminal Court. 

“We are open to work on all the possible solutions to have a dedicated tribunal to organize a trial by the crime of aggression…We want to be sure that we will have a very large, very broad support from the international community,” Reynders added. 

United States Assistant Attorney General, Kenneth A Polite Jr., told the news conference that the US “supports an international tribunal,” stressing its commitment to finding a “proper forum to ensure justice and accountability” for Russian crimes of aggression.

Key context: As it stands, the newly launched International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA) will not have direct investigative powers, EU criminal justice agency chief, Ladislav Harman told the news conference. Although unable to issue arrest warrants and indictments, the centre will focus on centralizing evidence of Russian crimes of aggression in Ukraine in one database with a view towards identifying evidentiary gaps “as early as possible.”