(Reuters) – Russia’s Wagner mercenary group appeared on Sunday to ditch plans to withdraw from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, saying they had been promised more arms by Moscow and suggesting they may keep up their assault on what Russia sees a stepping stone to other cities in the Donbas region.
CONFLICT
* Russian forces are evacuating residents from the town that serves the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said. Ukraine is expected to launch a counteroffensive soon to retake territory, including in the Zaporizhzhia region.
* Russian missiles targeted an industrial site in the Mykolaiv region of southern Ukraine, while Ukrainian and Russian media reported multiple explosions across Russian-occupied Crimea.
* Russian security forces have foiled an attempt by Ukrainian intelligence to attack a military airfield in central Russia with drones stuffed with explosives, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday.
* Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences had detected and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight.
* Air raid alerts blared for several hours overnight into early Sunday over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, with officials saying air defence systems shot down a number of drones.
* The head of the U.N.’s nuclear power watchdog warned on Saturday that the situation around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear station has become “potentially dangerous” as Moscow-installed officials began evacuating people from nearby areas.
GRAIN, FARM PRODUCTS
* Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet responded to proposals from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the Black Sea grain deal, TASS quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Saturday.
* Poland will demand European Union sanctions on imports of Russian farm products, its ambassador to the EU Andrzej Sados was quoted as saying on Saturday by PAP news agency
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(Editing by Frances Kerry and Hugh Lawson)
