War in Ukraine: three dead including a child in Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia power station, angry Russian wives… an update on the situation

Russia seized the plant weeks after invading Ukraine in February 2022. Significant steps must be taken before the plant can restart, says IAEA director safely, in the absence of "bombing or similar activity".

"The external power supply would then need to be provided in a more stable manner. This requires repairs, major repairs to existing lines, which at the moment, and due to military activity, are very difficult to envisage".

Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for periodic bombings that knocked out the power lines at the plant.

Wives of Russian soldiers demand their return

A group of Russian women organized a small but rare demonstration in front of the Defense Ministry in Moscow on Monday to demand the return of soldiers mobilized to the front in Ukraine. Groups of wives have been organizing sporadic demonstrations for several months to put pressure on the authorities in order to obtain the return of their husbands, sons or brothers, mobilized following a decree of the President Vladimir Putin in September 2022.

Paulina, present at the demonstration on Monday, told Reuters that the group of 18 women had gathered to personally challenge Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, a trained economist whom Vladimir Putin appointed last month. The young woman, who says she is 20 years old and has a husband fighting in Ukraine, explained that they were demanding that Andrei Belousov impose strict limits on the length of rotations.

Such protests are sensitive for the authorities, with the Kremlin claiming that its offensive in Ukraine enjoys the massive support of the Russian people. In February, dozens of reporters, including a Reuters video journalist, were arrested while covering a protest organized by a group called "Way Home" (way back in French), before being released.

Monday's protest is not linked to Way Home, which Russia on Friday labeled a '"foreign agent&quot ;, said Paulina, according to whom none of the 18 women present was arrested. Photos and videos posted by the protester on the Telegram app show women holding signs that read: "Please bring back dad at home". Several of them were accompanied by their children.

No ministry officials came out of the building to speak to the women, Paulina added. This demonstration illustrates the anger and despair of some soldiers' families as the war in Ukraine has entered its third year. Vladimir Putin mobilized 300,000 reservists in September 2022, an unpopular move he did not subsequently repeat, as hundreds of thousands more signed up voluntarily.

The Russian president has vowed that his troops, who are currently advancing on several front lines, will not stop until they have achieved the objectives of the "special military operation" launched by Moscow.

Deaths including a child in the Donetsk region

Three people, including a 12-year-old boy, were killed in Russian attacks in eastern and northeastern Ukraine, where Moscow has claimed advances constant in recent weeks, according to a new report announced Monday by the Ukrainian authorities. Two people, including a 12-year-old boy, died and another was injured following Russian shelling of the village of Mykhaïlivka, in the Donetsk region, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said on Telegram.

Russian aircraft dropped two bombs 90 minutes apart which damaged several houses in this locality, he said.

During the night from Sunday to Tuesday, one person was killed and two others were injured in a Russian strike on the neighboring region of Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country. Ukraine, where the Russian army recently seized several villages, said the territory's governor Oleg Synegoubov.

The attack hit a leisure site in Slobojanské, a town southeast of Kharkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city and the capital of the eponymous region, according to the governor.

"Houses were damaged. A man is dead. Another man and a woman were injured", Synegubov stressed. Bordering Russia, the Kharkiv region is targeted almost daily by Russian forces who launched a new ground offensive in this sector on May 10.

Ukraine, which dispatched valuable reinforcements to the site, assured at the end of May that this Russian attack had been "stopped". The fighting is currently taking place mainly in the east. The United States gave Ukraine the green light last week to use, under certain conditions, American weapons to strike Russian territory, in particular with the aim of repelling the assault on the Kharkiv region.