TOP HEADLINES

• Officials from the UN's nuclear watchdog are heading to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Moscow and Kyiv continue to trade accusations of shelling in the vicinity, stirring fears of a potential nuclear disaster. READ MORE BELOW

• Moscow and Russian-backed separatist officials in the region have welcomed the mission, during which the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will assess damage from shelling, check working conditions and evaluate the nuclear site's safety. 

• Ukraine's prime minister said the mission "will be the hardest in the history of the IAEA," while the Kremlin called on the international community to pressure Kyiv over its alleged shelling at the site, saying it was putting the whole of Europe at risk.

• The U.S. has accused Russia of not wanting to acknowledge the grave radiological risk at the plant, adding that was the reason it blocked a nuclear non-proliferation treaty deal's final draft. 

• EU defense and foreign ministers will meet in Prague this week to discuss options for setting up an EU military training mission for Ukrainian forces. They will also look into calls by some members to ban Russian tourists from entering the bloc. 

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he saw his country taking on "special responsibility" in giving Ukraine artillery and air defense systems, vowing that Berlin will maintain its backing of Kyiv for "as long as it takes."

• As Ukraine's nearly 6 million school-aged children prepare to return to school in September, authorities are repairing thousands of damaged buildings and constructing bomb shelters across the country to ensure students' safety in the classroom amid the new school year.

• The number of dolphins found stranded along the Ukrainian coastline has gone up more than 10-fold since the start of the conflict, according to marine scientists in the Odesa region. Turkish, Bulgarian and Romanian researchers have also noted an "unusual increase" in dolphin deaths, with an estimated 5,000 killed since March – almost 2 percent of the Black Sea's total population.

• Merchant sailors will be allowed to leave Ukraine if they get approval from their military administrative body, the country's prime minister has announced, part of a push to up grain and other agricultural exports. Ukrainian men have been largely barred from leaving the country.

• Germany, the EU's largest economy and heavily reliant on Russian gas, is replenishing its stocks more quickly than expected despite drastic supply cuts, with the government announcing it should meet an October target early.

• Britain's defense ministry said it was not clear how Russia would achieve an announced large increase in its armed forces but the boost was unlikely to substantially increase its combat power in Ukraine.

IN DETAIL

UN nuclear watchdog heads to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

A team from the UN nuclear watchdog headed on Monday to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant, to inspect its safety amid fears of a nuclear disaster at the site as shelling continues to hit the Russian-occupied facility. 

Zaporizhzhia, which is still manned by Ukrainian workers but controlled by Russian-backed separatists, has been a hotspot in a conflict that over six months has developed into a war of attrition which is now being fought mainly in Ukraine's east and south.

"We must protect the safety and security of Ukraine's and Europe's biggest nuclear facility," Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a post on Twitter.

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An IAEA team he was leading will reach the plant on the Dnipro river near the front lines in south Ukraine later this week, Grossi said, without specifying the day of their expected arrival.

The IAEA separately said that the mission would consider physical damage, the conditions in which staff are working at the plant and the "functionality of safety & security systems." It would also "perform urgent safeguards activities," a reference to keeping track of nuclear material.

The UN and Ukraine have called for a withdrawal of military equipment and personnel from the nuclear complex, Europe's largest, but so far Russia has refused. 

The two sides have for days exchanged accusations of courting disaster with their attacks.

With fears mounting of a nuclear accident in a country still haunted by the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, Zaporizhzhia authorities are giving out iodine tablets and teaching residents how to use them in the situation there is a radiation leak.

President Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, on Sunday accused Russian forces of purposefully provoking Ukrainian soldiers near the plant, while trying "to blackmail the world." 

Russia's defense ministry reported more Ukrainian shelling at the plant over the weekend, stating that nine artillery shells had landed in the plant's grounds.

Local authorities also claim to have downed a Ukrainian drone which planned to attack the nuclear-waste storage facility at the plant.

Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom said it had no new information about attacks on the plant, and the information remains unverified. 

However, two of the plant's reactors were cut off from the electrical grid last week due to shelling.