Six months after the start of the war in Ukraine, the nuclear issue is at the heart of concerns. Friday, August 26, Russia opposed the adoption of a text at the UN on nuclear disarmament. “Our delegation has a key objection to certain paragraphs which are shamelessly political,” said Russian representative Igor Vishnevetsky, repeating several times that Moscow was not the only country to have objections to the text in general.
On the ground, tension has subsided around the Ukrainian power plant in Zaporizhia, the largest in Europe, under Russian occupation and whose site was bombarded, which was reconnected to the electricity network on Friday after a disconnection the day before.
Russia on Friday prevented the adoption of a joint declaration at the end of the four-week UN review conference of the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT), denouncing “political” terms . The 191 signatories to the NPT, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, promote complete disarmament and promote cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear energy, have been meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York since August 1. .
But despite a month of negotiations and a final session postponed for several hours on Friday, “the conference is not in a position to reach an agreement”, said the president of the conference, the Argentinian Gustavo Zlauvinen, after the intervention of Russia. While decisions are taken by consensus, the Russian representative, Igor Vishnevetsky, has indeed denounced the lack of “balance” in the draft final text of more than 30 pages.
According to sources familiar with the negotiations, Russia was particularly opposed to the paragraphs concerning the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhya, occupied by the Russian military.
After two days of controversy, the French energy giant TotalEnergies announced Friday to sell its shares in a company accused of manufacturing fuel used by Russian planes engaged in the war in Ukraine. The Termokarstovoye gas field, operated by the company Terneftegaz (jointly owned 49% by the French group and 51% by the Russian Novatek), is accused by the newspaper Le Monde and the NGO Global Witness of having supplied condensate from gas to a Russian refinery, which turned it into kerosene.
This petroleum derivative would then have been shipped to supply Russian planes engaged in the conflict in Ukraine. According to the survey published on Wednesday, shipments from Terneftegaz have accounted for more than 8% of the raw material received in Omsk in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. Under pressure since the publication of the investigation, TotalEnergies has denied the destination of these fuels, also affirming that the steps to sell this joint venture had started several weeks ago.
The Hungarian government announced Friday the start “in the coming weeks” of the construction site of two new nuclear reactors, in collaboration with the Russian conglomerate Rosatom. Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto welcomed the permit granted the day before by the national regulatory authority, after numerous delays. “It’s a big step, an important milestone,” he said in a video posted to his Facebook account.
“We can now move from the initial phase to the construction phase. You will see it in the coming weeks on the Paks site”, he added, estimating “realistic” a commissioning by 2030. This controversial project illustrates the links forged over the years by nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The war in Ukraine has not changed Hungary’s position on the issue, contrary to the desire of its partners in the European Union to free themselves from Moscow. At the beginning of May, Rosatom thus lost an important contract in Finland.
The large and only reception center for Ukrainian refugees in Paris will close on Sunday, the prefecture of the Ile-de-France region (Prif) announced on Friday, which will dedicate a new, more modest space to orientation and emergency accommodation reserved for these displaced persons. Since mid-March, people fleeing the war in Ukraine have been cared for in a hall at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, where a space is dedicated to administrative procedures and another to emergency accommodation. before housing.
“The closure of this site being scheduled for August 28, a new reception center for displaced Ukrainians will open on this date” at the Paris Event Center, a space in the 19th arrondissement of the capital regularly used during migrant shelter, the prefecture said in a statement. The prefecture did not explain the reasons for this move. But for several weeks, the slowdown in the arrival of Ukrainian refugees – who now number more than 100,000 in France – has led to the gigantic exhibition center being left almost empty, including a hall of more than 22,000m² exclusively reserved for them.
Russia has likely increased the intensity of its attacks in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region over the past five days, according to British intelligence. Pro-Russian separatists have most likely advanced towards the center of the village of Pisky, near Donetsk airport, but Russian forces have made little territorial gains overall, according to the latest report from the UK Ministry of Defence.