Day 253: UN Security Council Rejects Russian Call For Bio Weapons Probe; Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Again Disconnected From Grid

Facts

• The UN Security Council on Wednesday voted to reject a call from Russia to launch an official probe into allegations that Ukraine and the US are carrying out "military biological" activities in violation of international conventions. Only China voted in favor of the probe alongside Russia. The US, UK and France voted against, while all 10 non-permanent members of the council abstained.
• Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said his country was "extremely disappointed" in the outcome, saying: "Western countries demonstrated in every way that the law does not apply to them." Meanwhile, America's ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the US voted against the resolution, "because it is based on disinformation, dishonesty, bad faith, and a total lack of respect for this body."
• Also on Wednesday, according to reports from Ukraine's state-owned energy company Energoatom, shelling near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) again disconnected the facility from Ukraine's power grid, forcing it to rely on backup diesel generators. On Thursday, Energoatom said Russian authorities planned to reconnect the ZNPP to the power grid in the occupied regions of Donbas and annexed Crimea.
• Elsewhere, as Russia re-entered the Black Sea grain deal, the country's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called on the UN to help fulfill the parts of the deal intended to ease Russia's food and fertilizer exports. "We still do not see any results regarding a second aspect: the removal of obstacles to the export of Russian fertilizers and grain," Lavrov told attendees at a news conference in Jordan.
• On the ground, renewed Russian attacks were reported in the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, where energy infrastructure in Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown of Kryvyi Rih was among the targets. There were no reports of civilian casualties at this stage.
• However, in the past day, Ukrainian officials said four civilians were killed and five injured in Donetsk, two were killed and seven injured in Kharkiv, and four civilians were injured in Kherson. They added that the bodies of four civilians who'd been killed earlier were also discovered in Donetsk. Meanwhile, officials from the Donetsk People's Republic said three civilians were killed and two more were injured in Ukrainian attacks in the region over the last 24 hours.

Sources: Associated Press, Pravda, US News, and ukrinform.

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by BBC. While Ukraine has dozens of public health laboratories that work to research and mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases — some of which are supported by the US, the EU, and the World Health Organization (WHO) — Moscow's claims that they're engaging in illicit research into bio-weapons are completely unfounded.
• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Daily Mail. Documents obtained from Hunter Biden's laptop show that the US president's son was involved in obtaining funding for Department of Defense contractors to build bio-labs in Ukraine for work on deadly pathogens that could be classified as bio-weapons. Russia's claims are at least partially true and warrant further investigation.

Predictions