August 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine's forces have begun "shaping" operations in the south of the country to prepare the battlefield for a significant Ukrainian counteroffensive, two senior US officials told CNN. 

Shaping operations are standard military practice prior to an offensive and involve striking weapons systems, command and control, ammunition depots and other targets to prepare the battlefield for planned advances.

According to the officials -- who have been briefed on the intelligence -- the US believes the much anticipated counteroffensive will include a combination of air and ground operations.

On Monday morning, Ukraine indicated that actions were underway.

"Ukrainian armed forces have started the offensive actions in several directions on the South front towards liberating the occupied territories," Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Operational Command South, told CNN.

"All the details will be available after the operation is fulfilled," she added.

The plans come as Russia's war in Ukraine has passed its six-month mark, with US assessments indicating that Russia has been able to deploy fewer units to the frontlines than initially thought, according to a senior US official. 

The official said many of the existing units -- which Russia organizes into Battlefield Tactical Groups (BTGs) comprising infantry, tanks, artillery and air defense -- are deploying below strength, some even at half their normal manpower.

Additionally, the US has been observing Ukrainian forces benefiting from the use of US- and NATO-supplied HIMARS mobile rocket launchers, which have allowed Ukraine to strike and destroy targets in Russian-held territory.

Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson announced on Monday that the country would provide a further 1 billion Swedish krona ($93.8 million) in aid to Ukraine, including both military and civilian assistance. 

Half of the additional aid package -- 500 million Swedish krona ($46.9 million) -- will provide military assistance. 

Kuleba reiterated Ukraine's request for Sweden to provide howitzers, air defense systems, and more shells, adding that "as long as the war continues, we will be asking for more weapons for obvious reasons -- to defend Ukraine, but also to defend [the] entirety of Europe."

Moscow welcomes the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) planned trip to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine, which is occupied by Russian forces, a Russian diplomat said according to state media. 

Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said that Russia understands the IAEA will leave several representatives at the plant on a permanent basis, state media RIA Novosti reported. 

"As far as we understand, it is the director general's intention to leave several people at the station on a permanent basis," Ulyanov said, according to RIA. 

Ulyanov added that the mission consists "of about a dozen employees of the agency's secretariat dealing with safeguards and nuclear safety issues" as well as a large team of UN staff dealing with logistics and security RIA reported. 

"Russia has made a significant contribution to the preparation of this mission. We hope that the visit of the plant by the IAEA mission will dispel numerous speculations about the unfavorable state of affairs at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant," Ulyanov added.

What's happening? Early on Monday, the head of the IAEA, Rafael Mariano Grossi, tweeted that the delegation would arrive in Zaporizhzhia -- home to Europe’s biggest nuclear facility -- “later this week.”

The Kremlin said Monday that the IAEA's mission will enter the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from the Ukrainian side, but Russia will ensure its safety on the territory occupied by the Russian army.

“[The mission] will enter the [nuclear plant] territory from the zone controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. There, security will be provided by the Ukrainians,” Peskov added.

When asked about the possibility of creating a demilitarized zone around the plant, Peskov said it was “not under discussion.”

Peskov added that Russia welcomes the long-awaited IAEA mission. 

“We have been waiting for this mission for a long time. We consider it necessary,” Peskov said.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Monday that the international community should be demanding Russia's withdrawal from Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, calling it the "only way" to ensure nuclear security. 

“We should all be united in demanding one thing: the withdrawal of Russia," from the power plant, Kuleba said during a press conference in Stockholm.

The foreign minister said he spoke with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Sunday to coordinate the final details for the nuclear watchdog's mission to Zaporizhzhia. 

It has been a longstanding request of Ukraine for the IAEA to receive access to the plant," said Kuleba, adding that "without exaggeration, this mission will be the hardest in the history of IAEA given the active combat activities undertaken by the Russian Federation."

Kuleba also said Ukraine expects the IAEA to conclude that Russia is violating nuclear safety protocols.

“We expect from the mission a clear statement of facts of violation of nuclear safety protocols. We know that Russia is putting not only Ukraine but also [the] entire world at threat, at risk of nuclear accident," Kuleba added.

Ukraine has been accusing Russia of using the plant as cover to launch attacks, knowing that Ukraine can’t return fire without risking hitting one of the plant’s six reactors. Moscow, meanwhile, has claimed Ukrainian troops are targeting the site.

Some background: IAEA's mission -- which will assess damage to the plant's facilities, evaluate the working conditions of the staff, and perform urgent safeguard activities -- comes amid renewed shelling at the facility and mounting fears over a potential nuclear accident.

Last week, Zaporizhzhia city authorities made iodine pills available to residents as concern grows over a possible accident.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has accused a second suspect in the murder of Darya Dugina, who was a Russian political commentator and the daughter of prominent ultranationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin. 

“In the course of further investigation, it was established that another member of the Ukrainian sabotage and terrorist group, a citizen of Ukraine ... prepared in Moscow the murder of D. Dugina,” the FSB press service said in a statement Monday. 

According to the FSB, the second suspect provided fake license plates and documents to the first suspect and helped assemble an improvised explosive device in a rented garage in the southwest of Moscow, which was later detonated in the car that Dugina was driving. 

The FSB said the second suspect had arrived in Russia on July 30 via Estonia and left Russian territory the day before Dugina’s death on August 20. 

What happened: Dugina, the editor of a Russian disinformation website, died after a bomb planted in a car she was driving went off in the outskirts of Moscow earlier in August.

The FSB blamed Ukrainian special services for the murder, saying the first suspect was a Ukrainian woman who arrived in Russia on July 23 with her young daughter, TASS reported. The pair attended a festival on Saturday near Moscow where Dugina was a guest of honor.

After remotely detonating explosives planted in Dugina's Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, the FSB said the woman and her daughter drove through the Pskov region to Estonia, roughly a 12-hour journey.

"Ru-propaganda lives in a fictional world: [Ukrainian] woman and her 12-year-old child were 'assigned' responsible for blowing up the car of propagandist Dugina. Surprisingly, they did not find the 'Estonian visa' on the spot," Mykhailo Podolyak, a key adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said last week on Twitter.

Read more about Dugina here:

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Darya Dugina's death sheds light on the women fronting Russia's propaganda machine

The G7 has welcomed a planned trip by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine this week. 

In a statement, the G7 group of nations said that it, “remains profoundly concerned by the serious threat the continued control of Ukrainian nuclear facilities by Russian armed forces pose to the safety and security of these facilities. These actions significantly raise the risk of a nuclear accident or incident and endanger the population of Ukraine, neighboring states, and the international community.”

Early Monday, IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi tweeted that the delegation would arrive in Zaporizhzhia -- home to Europe’s biggest nuclear facility -- “later this week.”

The mission -- which will assess damage to the plant's facilities, evaluate the working conditions of the staff, and perform urgent safeguard activities -- comes amid renewed shelling at the facility and mounting fears over a potential nuclear accident.

A team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are on their way to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine and will be there "later this week," IAEA Chief Rafael Mariano Grossi tweeted Monday. 

Nuclear fears: The mission — which will assess damage to the plant's facilities, evaluate the working conditions of the staff, and perform urgent safeguard activities — comes amid renewed shelling at the facility and mounting fears over a potential nuclear accident.

Shelling occurred in the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar near the plant on Sunday night, with Russia and Ukraine blaming each other for the attacks. The IAEA said in a statement Sunday that shelling in recent days hit a "special building" located just 100 meters from from the plant's reactor buildings.

Who is traveling? When CNN reached out to the IAEA on Sunday about the makeup of the expert mission, the nuclear watchdog declined to comment, saying it would not make such information public and that "all IAEA missions have members from different Member States, selected on the basis of their relevant expertise. They are international civil servants representing the IAEA, not their countries."

Shelling occurred in the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Sunday night, Russian and Ukrainian officials said — with each side blaming the other for the attacks.

Dmytro Orlov, the Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, said the shelling took place in the third and fifth micro districts of the city about 5.5 kilometers (3.4 miles) from the nuclear plant.

The shelling set cars on fire and a residential building "suffered a direct hit," he said.

Yevhen Balytskyi, head of the Russian-backed Zaporizhzhia region civil-military administration, said nine people were injured in three targeted hits on residential buildings.

Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-appointed council in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, blamed the attack on "Zelensky militants."

The shelling comes just days before a team of international experts with the United Nations nuclear watchdog is expected to visit the plant to help ensure nuclear safety and security at the site.

Kyiv's response: Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President's Office, condemned the attacks.

Some context: Kyiv and Moscow have made a barrage of accusations against each other about security and military action at and around the Zaporizhzhia power plant, the largest nuclear complex in Europe. But the lack of independent access to the plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March, makes it impossible to verify what is happening there.

Over the past month, a number of rockets and shells have landed on the territory of the plant, according to satellite imagery analyzed by CNN. CNN is unable to verify what strikes occurred, nor who was responsible.

The city of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region suffered more than 200 attacks in a 6-hour time span, Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration wrote in a Telegram post on Sunday. 

The city also came under attack for 14 hours straight, he said.

Two children and their mother were injured in the shelling, he added.