Russia: The French presidency announced on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to allow a team of impartial inspectors to visit the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhya, currently occupied by Moscow via Ukraine.
A senior US defense official said Ukrainian forces had halted the Russian advance as the dispute was settled whether inspectors entered the plant through Ukraine or Russia.
You can see that the Russians are not making any progress on the battlefield at all, the official said, speaking to reporters under condition of anonymity.
Putin "reconsidered the demand," according to French President Emmanuel Macron's office, that the International Atomic Energy Agency travel through Russia to the site after the Russian president warned that fighting there could be "catastrophic".
According to the statement, Putin had refused his request for an IAEA team to visit the site via Russia, saying he could do so via Ukraine.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN agency to monitor nuclear proliferation, "welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia support the IAEA's goal of sending a mission to the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant."
According to Grossi, the agency was "in active consultation with all parties" about sending one as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Moscow's troops to take over the Zaporizhzhya plant in southern Ukraine, in order not to cut the facility off the grid and cut off supplies to millions of Ukrainians.
Fighting has intensified around the Russian-controlled nuclear power plant, and both sides are blaming each other for the attacks, raising the prospect of a devastation worse than Chernobyl.
Putin and Macron agreed, according to the Kremlin, that an inspection by the IAEA should be conducted "as soon as possible" to "assess the actual situation on the ground".
"Putin insists that the systematic shelling by the Ukrainian military in the area of ​​the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant poses the risk of large-scale destruction," the Kremlin said.
The warning came a day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Guterres met in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, raised alarm about escalating fighting and urged the United Nations to secure the location.
Moscow claimed Kyiv was preparing to "instigate" the site on Thursday, accusing Russia of "creating a man-made disaster at the plant".
Kyiv, however, insisted that Moscow was behind the provocation and claimed that Russian occupation forces had on Friday ordered most employees to stay at home and called representatives of Russia's own state nuclear agency.
Guterres was in Odessa last month as part of an appeal to provide Ukrainian grain to poor countries grappling with skyrocketing food prices, following a landmark deal with Russia to allow its exports.
According to Kyiv, 25 boats carrying about 600,000 tonnes of agricultural products have already sailed from three designated ports under the deal, which is the only significant agreement between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion of Moscow in February.
Putin, however, informed Macron during his first talks in nearly three months that Russia was having difficulty exporting its food and fertilizer.
The Kremlin said that "there are still obstacles ... Russian exports that do not contribute to the resolution of issues related to ensuring global food security."
After Odessa, Guterres is expected to travel to Turkey to meet with the Joint Coordination Center, the organization in charge of managing the agreement.
A deal has been reached, but it has provided no relief on the broad front in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been slowly advancing for nearly six months.
Artillery barrages have been the main weapon of Moscow's military, and recent bombings on the eastern Donetsk region, which has been part of the control of Russian proxies since 2014, have claimed many lives.
On Friday, regional Ukrainian leader, Pavlo Kirilenko, posted on social media that the three settlements were the target of three Russian air strikes, which killed five people and injured ten others.
One person was killed in the attacks in Ukraine's second largest city Kharkiv early Friday and a school and a private business were also damaged, according to the regional administrator. Over the past two days, more than a dozen people have died as a result of Russian attacks near Kharkiv.
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