United Nations experts who crossed into Russian-held territory in Ukraine to assess the safety of Europe's biggest nuclear energy plant are seeking on Friday to assess physical damage to the facility, where both sides warn of possible disaster.

A team of UN experts yesterday arrived at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia atomic plant complex to assess the risk of a radiation disaster after being delayed several hours by shelling near the site.

UN nuclear inspectors set off for Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant yesterday after weeks of shelling nearby sparked fears of a Fukushima-style radiation disaster, with tensions rising between Kyiv and Moscow over the visit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Russian troops to flee for their lives after his forces launched an offensive to retake southern Ukraine, but Moscow said it had halted the attack in its tracks and inflicted heavy losses on Kyiv.

Ukraine yesterday announced the start of a long-awaited counter-offensive to retake territory in the south seized by Russian forces since their invasion six months ago, a move reflecting Kyiv’s growing confidence as Western military aid flows in.

Europe could face several winters of gas shortage as a result of the cuts to Russian supplies, Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said.

The Russian defence ministry said it had destroyed a large ammunition depot in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region that had contained US-made HIMARS rocket systems and shells for M777 Howitzers.

A top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow would not stop its military campaign in Ukraine even if Kyiv formally renounced its aspirations to join Nato.

Ukraine and Russia traded fresh accusations of shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant yesterday, as its operator warned of a radioactive leak risk at the atomic facility.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed a decree introducing financial benefits for people who left Ukrainian territory to come to Russia, including pensioners, pregnant women and disabled people.

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occupied by Moscow’s troops came back online yesterday afternoon, the state operator said, after Kyiv claimed it was cut from the national power grid by Russian shelling.

Russia is wasting large volumes of natural gas by burning it in a huge orange flare near the Finnish border at a time when it has sharply cut deliveries to the European Union, scientists and analysts said on Friday.

On a hot, humid East Coast day this summer, a massive container ship pulled into the Port of Baltimore loaded with sheets of plywood, aluminum rods and radioactive material – all sourced from the fields, forests and factories of Russia.

Russia’s Defence Ministry yesterday said its forces had struck a railway station in eastern Ukraine, confirming an attack which Kyiv says also hit a residential area and killed 25 civilians as the nation marked its Independence Day.

President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday vowed that Ukraine will resist the Russian invasion “until the end” without “any concession or compromise”, as the nation marked its Independence Day as well as the six-month anniversary of the start of the war.

The United States yesterday urged its citizens to leave Ukraine, saying it believed Russia was preparing to target civilian and government infrastructure in the next few days as the war reaches the six-month mark.

Nearly 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded, the country’s top military officer said yesterday, as Moscow accused Kyiv over the assassination of the daughter of a leading hardliner.

President Volodymyr Zelensky urged vigilance ahead of Wednesday’s celebrations of 31 years of Ukraine’s independence from Soviet rule, as shells rained down near Europe’s biggest nuclear plant and Russian forces struck in the south and east.

Russia yesterday said it has shot down a drone over the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea, as President Vladimir Putin agreed to allow independent inspectors to travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Russia has failed to gain ground in cyberspace against Ukraine almost six months after its invasion of the country, the head of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence service said on Friday.