Ukraine war: Putin says 'terrorists' shot at civilians in southern Russia

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi announced on Thursday that a new team of monitors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has taken up its post at Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station after a delay of almost a month. 

Russia has accused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of disrupting the latest monthly staff rotation, which had been put back three times. 

The United States is not providing Ukraine with intelligence for targets inside Russia, the Pentagon said on Thursday (March 2), calling the Russian accusations "nonsense."

"I don't have any information in regards to whether or not the Ukrainians have conducted these type of operations, I'd refer you to them," Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters. 

"I can say definitively that the notion of the US providing intelligence or information to the Ukrainians to target locations inside Russia is nonsense. We are not at war with Russia, nor do we seek war with Russia," Ryder added.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Russia's invasion of Ukraine "threatens to undermine stability across the globe" during a speech in New Delhi, India on Thursday (March 2).

"We cannot allow the very foundations of international laws to be threatened," she added before blaming Russia for inflation and global energy prices.

Ukrainian forces hung on to positions in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut on Thursday, while Moscow said its security forces had battled Ukrainian saboteurs who had taken hostages in a cross-border raid. 

Russia's FSB security force said the situation was now "under control" in Bryansk province just north of the Ukrainian border. Earlier Moscow had said armed Ukrainians had crossed the frontier, fired on a car killing one person and wounding a child, and held hostages in a shop. 

Reuters reported that residents from the area surrounding Bakhmut arrived in the Russian-controlled city of Shakhtarsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region on Thursday. 

Yelena Vyacheslavskaya and her husband Sergei Vyacheslavskiy lived near Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that became an area of long and intense battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Pro-Russian head of Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin said: "You know we see it all. We are trying to liberate our settlements as fast as possible. We understand what one has to go through. Unfortunately, we have had such experiences - when we liberated Mariupol and Volnovakha. I am sure that many of you want to get back to your homes as soon as possible. Do not worry about the city - they enemy will destroy everything they can. Our task is to rebuild and make the city even better." 

Russia's FSB security service said Thursday the southern Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine was "under control" after Moscow claimed Ukrainian saboteurs opened fire on civilians there.

"The situation in the settlements of the Klimovsky district of the Bryansk region in under the control of law enforcement agencies," the domestic security service was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. The FSB added that "demining" was underway and that a "large number of explosives" had been found. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he urged his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to end the war in Ukraine. 

"I told the foreign minister what I and so many others said last week at the United Nations and what so many G20 foreign ministers said today -- end this war of aggression, engage in meaningful diplomacy that can produce a just and lasting peace," Blinken told reporters after talks in New Delhi.

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met briefly with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday (March 2) in New Delhi on the sidelines of the Group of 20 foreign minister's meeting, sources told WION. It was their first such encounter since the start of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. 

Blinken reportedly told the Russian foreign minister that the US will support Ukraine "for as long as it takes". He also urged Russia to rejoin the New START nuclear arms control treaty that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently withdrew from. 

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said "neo-Nazis" and "terrorists" had opened fire on civilians in the southern Bryansk region, after a reconnaissance group was accused of crossing the border from Ukraine.

"Our soldiers and officers... protect against neo-Nazis and terrorists... those who today committed another terrorist attack, penetrated the border area and opened fire on civilians," Putin said in a televised address.