Heavy fighting has been raging into Thursday in areas near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine after Kyiv warned that it might have to shut down the plant to avoid disaster.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in its daily morning update that some villages and communities near the plant were heavily shelled in the 24 hours to Thursday morning from “tanks, mortars, barrel and jet artillery.”
Overnight, Russian forces fired rockets and heavy artillery into the nearby town of Nikopol four times, the area’s regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, wrote on Telegram, damaging at least 11 houses and other buildings.
On Wednesday, Ukraine said it might have to shut the nuclear plant and called on residents in areas near the embattled facility to evacuate for their own safety.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling that has occurred close to the plant and within its perimeter, risking nuclear catastrophe. Russian forces took over the plant soon after their Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine but Ukrainian technicians still operate the power station.
Mykola Lukashuk, the head of the Dnipro region council, said on the Telegram channel that Russians were shelling Nikopol from the direction of Enerhodar — the main town serving the Zaporizhzhia plant.
“The occupiers are deliberately shelling civilian objects in order to terrorize the population,” Lukashuk said.
Russia denies deliberately attacking civilians in its “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine. Kyiv and its allies say the invasion is an unprovoked war of aggression.
On Thursday, the Russian state TASS news agency reported, citing a Moscow-installed head of the Enerhodar administration, Alexander Volga, that Ukraine forces have not been striking the plant with artillery.
“No cannon artillery strikes were observed at the (plant), but drones periodically fly in,” TASS quoted Volga, as saying.
“Projectiles have been dropped from UAVs on the territory of the plant itself for the past two days.”
Fighting rages in areas near Russian-held nuclear plant in Ukraine
https://arab.news/zwt6r
Fighting rages in areas near Russian-held nuclear plant in Ukraine
‘A den of bandits’: Rwanda closes thousands of evangelical churches
- A 2018 law introduced new rules on health, safety, and financial disclosures, and requires all preachers to have theological training
- Observers say the real reason for the closures comes down to control, noting that even those who complied with the law had been shut down
- President Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling
KIGALI: Grace Room Ministries once filled giant stadiums in Rwanda three times a week before the evangelical organization was shut down in May.
It is one of the 10,000 churches reportedly closed by the government for failing to comply with a 2018 law designed to regulate places of worship.
The law introduced new rules on health, safety, and financial disclosures, and requires all preachers to have theological training.
President Paul Kagame has been vocal in his criticisms of the evangelical churches that have sprouted across the small country in Africa’s Great Lakes region.
“If it were up to me I wouldn’t even reopen a single church,” Kagame told a news briefing last month.
“In all the development challenges we are dealing with, the wars... our country’s survival — what is the role of these churches? Are they also providing jobs? Many are just thieving... some churches are just a den of bandits,” he said.
The vast majority of Rwandans are Christian according to a 2024 census, with many now traveling long and costly distances to find places to pray.
Observers say the real reason for the closures comes down to control.
Kagame’s government is saying “there’s no rival in terms of influence,” Louis Gitinywa, a lawyer and political analyst based in Kigali, told AFP.
The ruling party “bristles when an organization or individual gains influence,” he said, a view also expressed to AFP by an anonymous government official.
‘Deceived’
The 2018 law requires churches to submit annual action plans stating how they align with “national values.” All donations must be channelled through registered accounts.
Pastor Sam Rugira, whose two church branches were shut down last year for failing to meet fire safety regulations, said the rules mostly affected new evangelical churches that have “mushroomed” in recent years.
But Kagame has described the church as a relic of the colonial period, a chapter of its history with which the country is still grappling.
“You have been deceived by the colonizers and you let yourself be deceived,” he said in November.
The closure of Grace Room Ministries came as a shock to many across the country.
Pastor Julienne Kabanda, had been drawing massive crowds to the shiny new BK Arena in Kigali when the church’s license was revoked.
The government had cited unauthorized evangelical activities and a failure to submit “annual activity and financial reports.”
AFP was unable to reach Kabanda for comment.
‘Open disdain, disgust’
A church leader in Kigali, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the president’s “open disdain and disgust” for churches “spells tough times ahead.”
“It is unfair that even those that fulfilled all requirements are still closed,” he added.
But some say the clampdown on places of worship is linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which around 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were slaughtered.
Ismael Buchanan a political science lecturer at the National University of Rwanda, told AFP the church could sometimes act as “a conduit of recruitment” for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Hutu militia formed in exile in DR Congo by those who committed the genocide.
“I agree religion and faith have played a key role in healing Rwandans from the emotional and psychological wounds after the genocide, but it also makes no sense to have a church every two kilometers instead of hospitals and schools,” he said.
Pastor Rugira meanwhile suggested the government is “regulating what it doesn’t understand.”
It should instead work with churches to weed out “bad apples” and help them meet requirements, especially when it comes to the donations they rely on to survive, he said.
