Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant (the ZNPP), a key focus for tensions between Kyiv and Moscow, is running on diesel generators as Russian forces refuse to allow more diesel deliveries to reach the plant, according to Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company.

Energoatom said in a statement Wednesday that the nuclear power plant was running on diesel generators after a Russian rocket attack damaged the Dniprovska substation. As a result of the attack, the transmission line was disconnected and the plant went into “full black-out mode.”

“Diesel generators started operating automatically,” it said, but when it prepared and dispatched another batch of diesel fuel to the ZNPP, Russian forces had not allowed the Energoatom’s convoy of vehicles to pass.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling around the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest of its kind, since Russian forces occupied the facility early on in the war. International experts fear the plant’s safety and stability amid the ongoing conflict with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stationing experts there to monitor the facility.

CNBC was unable to verify the details from Energoatom but earlier on Wednesday, the head of the IAEA Rafael Grossi tweeted that members of his team had informed him of the loss of power and use of backup diesel generators.

“This repeated loss of ZNPP’s off-site power is a deeply worrying development and it underlines the urgent need for a nuclear safety & security protection zone around the site,” he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s intelligence services said it will not respond to Russia’s arrests of eight individuals it alleges are connected to last Saturday’s Crimea bridge blast.

“All the activities of the FSB and the Investigative Committee are nonsense. These are fake structures that serve the Putin regime, so we will definitely not comment on their regular statements,” Andrey Yusov, a spokesperson for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, said in a statement provided to CNBC on Wednesday.

Russia’s Federal Security Service said Wednesday that it arrested five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia that it alleged were connected to the attack, which partially damaged the bridge that Russia uses to access the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and to resupply its troops in southern Ukraine.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the bridge attack and Yusov insinuated the arrests (and potentially, the attack) were staged.

“It is surprising that no business card has yet been found in the area of ​​​​the Crimean bridge,” he said.

That was a reference to an attack on a checkpoint near Sloviansk in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in 2014 that Russia claimed was led by Ukrainian nationalist Dmytro Yarosh.

Ukraine claimed pro-Russian separatists (or Russian…