Since February 24, 2022, Meduza has been broadcasting live about the Russian-Ukrainian war. We publish your messages every day because we are certain that we need to keep talking about war. Share with us your thoughts about war. What emotions are you feeling? How does war affect your life and your attitude to the world? If you have a war story, tell it. The feedback form is at the end of this article. You can read the previous day’s review here.
Ukraine
On the night of June 7, a Russian drone attacked the central storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, located in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. I mentioned In the Ukrainian company Energoatom.
The fuel container reception building was damaged. Spent nuclear fuel was not stored there. After the collision, a fire broke out. Its area was 40 square metres. The fire was extinguished and there were no casualties among the workers.
Energoatom stated that background radiation at the site remains within normal limits.
President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky maleRussia “deliberately” struck a “critical infrastructure” facility. “Today there is no excess in background radiation standards,” Zelensky wrote on his Telegram channel. “But even the already high Russian impudence has certainly been exceeded. Ukrainian rescuers extinguished the fire in this facility after the collision. We need real new steps from the world so that the Russians feel that their terrorist war is a blow to Russia itself.”
Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency about the strike. In a message from the organization She saysThe building was severely damaged; Nearby buildings were also damaged by the shock wave. IAEA experts will visit the storage facility in the near future. The organization’s Director-General, Rafael Grossi, said that the incident is very disturbing because it occurred in a facility where large quantities of nuclear materials are stored a few meters away.
Russia has not yet commented on these statements.
Recently, Moscow accused the Ukrainian armed forces of launching attacks on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. On May 30, Rosatom announced that a Ukrainian combat drone attacked the turbine hall building of the station’s sixth power unit. The main equipment was not damaged, but a hole appeared in the wall of the machine room. The agency’s experts who arrived at the station noted “damage to a metal entry hatch located on one of the upper floors of the building, in addition to many debris and the remains of a burned fiber-optic cable on the ground.” The Ukrainian armed forces deny that they attacked the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
War in pictures. Kakhovskaya Hydroelectric Power Station three years after its destruction
On the night of June 6, 2023, the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station collapsed as a result of an explosion in the Kherson region. On the eve of the third anniversary of the disaster, the Ukrainian environmental group spent Another expedition to the territory of the former reservoir. For the third year now, its bottom has become covered with forests, forming a new ecosystem. “We can work in separate areas near the coast, although the area itself is huge – two thousand square kilometers. Most likely, the most interesting thing is further away, where we cannot reach (This area is under Russian control – Medusa Note). Therefore, the significance of all our conclusions is downplayed, but in fact everything is much more interesting. He said Expedition member ecologist Alexei Vasilyuk.
According to scientists, the territory of the former reservoir has become home to a large number of birds and insects.
“I have never heard so many nightingales at the same time. This may be the highlight of this area – the largest nightingale forest in Europe. The trees continue to grow in height and increase in size, but they are not diminishing. We took soil samples – it is very rich in organic matter, although it is heavily polluted with heavy metals.” male ecologist.
father words Member of the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian environmental group Ivan Moiseenko, in the first two years after the destruction of the station, this area could not be called a forest, because the trees did not reach a height of five meters: “And in 2025, the average height of willow forests became more than five meters, and some willows – more than seven meters. That is, starting from 2025, the forest of trees at the bottom of the Kakhovka reservoir can be called a forest.”
he He addedAbout 400 species of plants are now growing at the bottom of the tank.
What did this area look like before?
War through the eyes of Medusa readers
Medusa’s readers live in different countries and have different attitudes toward war. We publish your messages to see this event through your eyes. Our editors try to represent all viewpoints, even if they do not match the editorial position. However, in accordance with the Medusa Law, we do not publish messages that contain “hate speech,” justify the killing of civilians, or express direct support for an aggressive war.
Alexandra (Budapest). I recently left abroad, only five months ago, so my soul is still there in Russia. I guess I haven’t realized it yet, but my loved ones may also be in danger from drones: my mother, my sister, and my parents-in-law. I read news of the dead and even now I don’t feel anything, even though I understand in my mind that I should.
I monitor my mood through my mother’s mood: she is very suggestible, watches TV and reads the cotton channels. It’s all in her head. For a long time she laughed condescendingly and said that my husband and I would definitely return to Russia and would regret our departure. And recently I told her again something like “sorry, we don’t want to live in Russia, it’s dangerous here”, and she just replied: “what can I say, you’re right”.
Unfortunately, most of these people, despite their disillusionment with the authorities, still believe that they just need to fight with full force, and believe that the “collectivist West” wants to destroy Russia. I don’t know when or if they will understand that they are self-destructing.