Video above: UN inspectors head to Ukraine nuclear plantRussian shelling hit the southern Ukraine port city of Mykolaiv during the night, damaging a medical treatment facility, the city's mayor said Sunday.Mykolaiv and its surrounding region have been hit daily for weeks in the conflict. On Saturday, a child was killed and five people were injured in rocket attacks in the region, governor Vitaliy Kim said. Mykolaiv city mayor Oleksandr Senkevych did not specify whether there were any injuries in the overnight attack, which he said also damaged some residences.Mykolaiv, on the Southern Bug River about 30 kilometers (20 miles) upstream from the Black Sea, is a significant port and shipbuilding center.In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, Russian shelling late Saturday set a large wooden restaurant complex on fire, according to the region's emergency service. One person was killed and two injured in shelling in the region, governor Oleh Syniehubov said.Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces have been trying to take full control, said four people were killed in shelling on Saturday.The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday that the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine was disconnected from its last external power line but was still able to run electricity through a reserve line amid sustained shelling in the area.International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a statement that the agency’s experts, who arrived at Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, were told by senior Ukrainian staff that the fourth and last operational line was down. The three others were lost earlier during the conflict.But the IAEA experts learned that the reserve line linking the facility to a nearby thermal power plant was delivering the electricity the plant generates to the external grid, the statement said. The same reserve line can also provide backup power to the plant if needed, it added.“We already have a better understanding of the functionality of the reserve power line in connecting the facility to the grid,” Grossi said. “This is crucial information in assessing the overall situation there.”In addition, the plant’s management informed the IAEA that one reactor was disconnected Saturday afternoon because of grid restrictions. Another reactor is still operating and producing electricity both for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site and for households, factories and others through the grid, the statement said.The Zaporizhzhia facility, which is Europe’s largest nuclear plant, has been held by Russian forces since early March, but its Ukrainian staff are continuing to operate it.Vladimir Rogov, the head of the Russia-installed local administration in Enerhodar, the city where the plant is located, was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying there had been no new shelling of the area on Sunday as of midday.

A series of explosions rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.There were no immediate reports of casualtiesThe blasts came hours after Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14.Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes that hit one of the city's medical institutions, a nonresidential building and other spots.In a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his conduct of Europe's worst armed conflict since World War II, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organizations in his country and Ukraine, and to an activist jailed in Russia's ally Belarus.Berit Reiss-Andersen, the committee's chair, said the honor went to “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence."Putin this week illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory, including the Zaporizhzhia region that is home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, whose reactors were shut down last month.Fighting near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has alarmed the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog, which on Friday doubled to four the number of its inspectors monitoring plant safeguards. An accident there could release 10 times more potentially lethal radiation than the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine 36 years ago, Ukrainian Environmental Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets said Friday.“The situation with the occupation, shelling, and mining of the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants by Russian troops is causing consequences that will have a global character,” Strilets told The Associated Press.The U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported more trouble at the plant, saying Friday on Twitter that external power had again been cut off to one of Zaporizhzhia's shutdown reactors, necessitating the use of emergency backup diesel generators to run safety systems.The city of Zaporizhzhia is located 53 kilometers (33 miles) away from the nuclear plant as a crow flies and remains under Ukrainian control. To cement Russia's claim to the region, Russian forces bombarded the city with S-300 missiles on Thursday, with more attacks reported Friday.Ukrainian authorities said the death toll from the strikes on apartment buildings rose to 14 on Friday, while 12 people wounded in the bombardment remained hospitalized.Missiles also struck the city overnight, wounding one person, Zaporizhzhia Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said. Russia also used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones there for the first time and damaged two infrastructure facilities, he said.With its army losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and east, Russia has deployed unmanned, disposable Iranian-made drones that are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but still can damage ground targets.The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Russia's use of the explosives-packed drones was unlikely to affect the course of the war.“They have used many drones against civilian targets in rear areas, likely hoping to generate nonlinear effects through terror. Such efforts are not succeeding,” analysts at the think tank wrote.In other Moscow-annexed areas, Russia's Defense Ministry reported Friday that its forces had repelled Ukrainian advances near the city of Lyman and retaken three villages elsewhere in the eastern Donetsk region. The ministry also claimed that Russian forces had prevented Ukrainian troops from advancing on several villages in the southern Kherson region.Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Friday that this week alone, his military has recaptured 776 square kilometers (300 square miles) of territory in the east and 29 settlements, including six in the Luhansk region, which Putin has annexed. In total, Ukrainian forces have liberated 2,434 square kilometers (940 square miles) of land and 96 settlements since the beginning of its counteroffensive, he said.In Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian troops shelled the city of Nikopol overnight, killing one person, wounding another and damaging buildings, natural gas pipelines and electricity systems, the governor reported. Nikopol lies along the Dnieper River across from Russian-held territory near the nuclear power plant. The city has been shelled frequently for weeks.The trail of Russia’s devastation and death from areas where its troops retreated became clearer Friday. A report by Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevhen Yenin revealed that 530 bodies of civilians have been found in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region since Sept. 7.The residents killed during the Russian occupation included 257 men, 225 women and 19 children, with 29 people unidentified, Yenin said. Most of the bodies were found in a previously disclosed mass grave in the city of Izium.According to Yenin, the recovered bodies bore signs of gunshots, explosions and torture. Some people had ropes around their necks, hands tied behind their back, bullet wounds to their knees and broken ribs.Authorities have identified 22 torture sites in parts of the Kharkiv region that Ukrainian forces recently liberated, said Serhiy Bolvinov, a regional police official.In recently recaptured Lyman, workers found 200 individual graves and a mass grave with an unknown number of victims, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Telegram. In Sviatohirsk, 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Lyman, 21 bodies of civilians were reburied.Russian military equipment and weapons, meanwhile, is getting into Ukrainian hands. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that Ukrainian forces have captured at least 440 tanks and about 650 armored vehicles since the Russian invasion started Feb. 24.“The failure of Russian crews to destroy intact equipment before withdrawing or surrendering highlights their poor state of training and low levels of battle discipline,” the British ministry said. “With Russian formations under severe strain in several sectors and increasingly demoralized troops, Russia will likely continue to lose heavy weaponry.”Putin ordered a partial mobilization of Russian army reservists last month to reinforce manpower on the front lines in Ukraine. Mistakes have dogged the military call-up, however, and tens of thousands of men have fled Russia, unwilling to fight Putin's war.That has left Russia desperate for troop reinforcements. The Ukrainian military said Friday that 500 former criminals have been mobilized to reinforce Russian ranks in the eastern Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces have retaken territory. Law enforcement officers are commanding the new units, the military said.Russia's state news agency Tass reported Friday that a court in the Russian city of Penza had dismissed the first case against a Russian man called up to serve but who refused. The 32-year-old man's lawyers had argued that the law under which he was charged applies only to conscription evaders, not those subject to the partial mobilization.In another sign of trouble, reports have surfaced of poor training and few supplies for the new Russian troops. At least two Russian cities — St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod — announced Friday they were canceling their Russian New Year's and Christmas celebrations and redirecting that money to buy supplies for Russian troops.Under increasing pressure from his own supporters as well as critics, Putin continued to reshuffle his military’s leadership, replacing the commander of Russia’s eastern military district.___Associated Press journalists Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Vasilisa Stepanenko and Francisco Seco in Kharkiv contributed to this report.

A series of explosions rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.

There were no immediate reports of casualties

The blasts came hours after Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes that hit one of the city's medical institutions, a nonresidential building and other spots.

In a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his conduct of Europe's worst armed conflict since World War II, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organizations in his country and Ukraine, and to an activist jailed in Russia's ally Belarus.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, the committee's chair, said the honor went to “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence."

Putin this week illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory, including the Zaporizhzhia region that is home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant, whose reactors were shut down last month.

Fighting near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has alarmed the U.N.'s atomic energy watchdog, which on Friday doubled to four the number of its inspectors monitoring plant safeguards. An accident there could release 10 times more potentially lethal radiation than the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine 36 years ago, Ukrainian Environmental Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets said Friday.

“The situation with the occupation, shelling, and mining of the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants by Russian troops is causing consequences that will have a global character,” Strilets told The Associated Press.

The U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported more trouble at the plant, saying Friday on Twitter that external power had again been cut off to one of Zaporizhzhia's shutdown reactors, necessitating the use of emergency backup diesel generators to run safety systems.

The city of Zaporizhzhia is located 53 kilometers (33 miles) away from the nuclear plant as a crow flies and remains under Ukrainian control. To cement Russia's claim to the region, Russian forces bombarded the city with S-300 missiles on Thursday, with more attacks reported Friday.

Ukrainian authorities said the death toll from the strikes on apartment buildings rose to 14 on Friday, while 12 people wounded in the bombardment remained hospitalized.

Missiles also struck the city overnight, wounding one person, Zaporizhzhia Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said. Russia also used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones there for the first time and damaged two infrastructure facilities, he said.

Francisco Seco

With its army losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and east, Russia has deployed unmanned, disposable Iranian-made drones that are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but still can damage ground targets.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Russia's use of the explosives-packed drones was unlikely to affect the course of the war.

“They have used many drones against civilian targets in rear areas, likely hoping to generate nonlinear effects through terror. Such efforts are not succeeding,” analysts at the think tank wrote.

In other Moscow-annexed areas, Russia's Defense Ministry reported Friday that its forces had repelled Ukrainian advances near the city of Lyman and retaken three villages elsewhere in the eastern Donetsk region. The ministry also claimed that Russian forces had prevented Ukrainian troops from advancing on several villages in the southern Kherson region.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Friday that this week alone, his military has recaptured 776 square kilometers (300 square miles) of territory in the east and 29 settlements, including six in the Luhansk region, which Putin has annexed. In total, Ukrainian forces have liberated 2,434 square kilometers (940 square miles) of land and 96 settlements since the beginning of its counteroffensive, he said.

In Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian troops shelled the city of Nikopol overnight, killing one person, wounding another and damaging buildings, natural gas pipelines and electricity systems, the governor reported. Nikopol lies along the Dnieper River across from Russian-held territory near the nuclear power plant. The city has been shelled frequently for weeks.

The trail of Russia’s devastation and death from areas where its troops retreated became clearer Friday. A report by Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevhen Yenin revealed that 530 bodies of civilians have been found in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region since Sept. 7.

The residents killed during the Russian occupation included 257 men, 225 women and 19 children, with 29 people unidentified, Yenin said. Most of the bodies were found in a previously disclosed mass grave in the city of Izium.

According to Yenin, the recovered bodies bore signs of gunshots, explosions and torture. Some people had ropes around their necks, hands tied behind their back, bullet wounds to their knees and broken ribs.

Authorities have identified 22 torture sites in parts of the Kharkiv region that Ukrainian forces recently liberated, said Serhiy Bolvinov, a regional police official.

In recently recaptured Lyman, workers found 200 individual graves and a mass grave with an unknown number of victims, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Telegram. In Sviatohirsk, 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Lyman, 21 bodies of civilians were reburied.

Russian military equipment and weapons, meanwhile, is getting into Ukrainian hands. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that Ukrainian forces have captured at least 440 tanks and about 650 armored vehicles since the Russian invasion started Feb. 24.

“The failure of Russian crews to destroy intact equipment before withdrawing or surrendering highlights their poor state of training and low levels of battle discipline,” the British ministry said. “With Russian formations under severe strain in several sectors and increasingly demoralized troops, Russia will likely continue to lose heavy weaponry.”

Putin ordered a partial mobilization of Russian army reservists last month to reinforce manpower on the front lines in Ukraine. Mistakes have dogged the military call-up, however, and tens of thousands of men have fled Russia, unwilling to fight Putin's war.

That has left Russia desperate for troop reinforcements. The Ukrainian military said Friday that 500 former criminals have been mobilized to reinforce Russian ranks in the eastern Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces have retaken territory. Law enforcement officers are commanding the new units, the military said.

Russia's state news agency Tass reported Friday that a court in the Russian city of Penza had dismissed the first case against a Russian man called up to serve but who refused. The 32-year-old man's lawyers had argued that the law under which he was charged applies only to conscription evaders, not those subject to the partial mobilization.

In another sign of trouble, reports have surfaced of poor training and few supplies for the new Russian troops. At least two Russian cities — St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod — announced Friday they were canceling their Russian New Year's and Christmas celebrations and redirecting that money to buy supplies for Russian troops.

Under increasing pressure from his own supporters as well as critics, Putin continued to reshuffle his military’s leadership, replacing the commander of Russia’s eastern military district.

___

Associated Press journalists Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Vasilisa Stepanenko and Francisco Seco in Kharkiv contributed to this report.

Bob Herring wears his love of Kharkiv, Ukraine — Cincinnati's sister city — on his sleeve wherever he goes.It was on full display out in front of his home Monday. The blue and yellow Ukrainian flag flies there around the clock.When news of a surprise visit to Ukraine by President Joe Biden was announced Tuesday, he felt an even deeper resolve. "To take that risk, you know, to fly into the country, it's incredible," Herring said. "And very much appreciated."Herring chairs the Cincinnati/Kharkiv sister city partnership. He will address City Council on Wednesday and review the support generated within the local community during the past year.On Friday, Herring will join Mayor Aftab Pureval, Congressman Greg Landsman, and other dignitaries to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's incursion.No further fundraising event is imminent as far as the partnership is concerned, at least not yet."We're waiting for the dust to settle, if you will, after the anticipated Russian assault in the Spring," Herring said. "What will conditions be like on the ground in Kharkiv when that assault is over? What will their needs be? And that's when we'll be in direct communication with the Kharkiv Red Cross. Tell us what you need and we'll do what we can to provide funding for that."Herring and others are cognizant about not going to the well too often. They do not want to unwittingly create donor fatigue.So, they are biding their time as the start of a second year of war in Ukraine approaches. But, it is not easy for Herring to wait while so much suffering is going on.He shared a number he received from the Kharkiv Red Cross right before Christmas. It is the type of number that war produces in a lasting manner."Seven hundred and fifty kids that they're working with, that they know, whose dads are dead or missing," Herring said.As he started to say more, his eyes started to fill with water."Seven...hundred and fifty," he said.As a grandfather of five, the enormity of the number seemed etched on his face."That's tough at the holidays. And the future for those kids," Herring said. He shared a picture of five high school kids he met when he was in Kharkiv in 2019."I don't know where they are," he said in a low tone. "I don't know if they're dead or alive."What he knows, what he carries deep within him, is a conviction that Vladimir Putin must not be permitted to prevail in the war on Ukraine. The war has interrupted daily life in Ukraine and even the technical bond between the two cities.The Memorandum of Understanding has been renewed every five years.The last signing was in May 2017 when then-Mayor John Cranley was joined at City Hall by Ihor Terekhov, then Vice Mayor, now Mayor of Kharkiv, and Irina Backumenko, President of the Partnership, currently in Great Britain.Now, it has expired.Getting the MOU re-signed will have to wait for a cessation of hostilities.Herring still considers local support for Ukraine to be strong, although he doesn't get as many questions about it as he used to.The week will conclude with a Friday night candlelight vigil at Wyoming Presbyterian Church.Herring's hoping Cincinnati will keep its support on full display in a second uncertain year of the war.