White House: Russia's decision to block Facebook is an attempt to hide information
The White House stressed that targeting civilian facilities in Ukraine is a war crime, noting that the United States can provide the International Criminal Court with information about what Moscow is doing there.
And he announced in a statement, Friday, that US President Joe Biden has no intention of dealing directly with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
He also added that Washington does not want regime change in Russia.
Regarding Russia's decision to block social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the statement considered it an attempt to conceal information.
Chernobyl disaster
This statement came as a comment on the Russian bombing of the vicinity of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, the largest in Ukraine and Europe as a whole, on Thursday.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of resorting to "nuclear terror" and seeking to "repeat" the Chernobyl disaster by bombing the largest station in Europe.
"There is no other country in the world but Russia that has shot at nuclear power plants. It is the first time in our history, in the history of mankind, that a country resorts to nuclear terror," he said in a video message published by the Ukrainian presidency.
At the same time, the Ukrainian emergency services announced that the Russian forces prevented firefighting teams from reaching the nuclear plant to put out the fire that broke out in it. In a statement on Facebook, it said that the Russian forces did not allow the Ukrainian General Rescue Units to start putting out the fire, noting that the fire broke out in a "training building" at the station, and that one of its six reactors was currently operating.
But later Ukrainian officials reported that firefighting teams had arrived at the scene in order to put out the fire.
On the other hand, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced that Kyiv had informed it that none of the basic equipment at the plant was damaged. "Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency that the fire that broke out at the site did not affect basic equipment, and that the station crew took measures" to contain and extinguish the fire, she said in a tweet on Twitter.
In turn, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm stressed that the reactors in Zaporizhia are "protected by strong containment facilities, where the reactors are generally closed safely."
Granholm also added on Twitter that she had spoken with her Ukrainian counterpart, saying, "We haven't seen any readings of increased radiation near the facility."
Russian bombing
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian authorities had announced at dawn that the Russian forces had fired from all sides at the facility until flames erupted in it, amid international warnings of the seriousness of the situation.
These field developments came on the ninth day of the military operation launched by the Russian forces on Ukrainian territory, a few days after the Kremlin recognized the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, which entailed an international alert and a wide package of sanctions against Moscow.
Several months ago, the Russian-Ukrainian border witnessed a military alert and Russian crowds, amid unprecedented tension with the West, against the background of the Russians’ refusal to expand NATO in the European East, or the annexation of Kyiv to it, especially since there have been tensions between Moscow and the Ukrainian capital for years, especially 2014 when Russian forces took control of Crimea.
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