Ukraine Update….181 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…UN inspectors….

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the IAEA experts’ visit and called for demilitarization of the area around the plant in his nightly address Thursday. He accused Russia of efforts to “deceive the mission” by intimidating local residents and refusing to allow journalists to accompany the inspectors. “The main thing is to have the will to draw objective conclusions,” Zelensky said.
• The IAEA team pushed ahead with the visit despite what Grossi said was “increased military activity” near the plant. The expert mission was briefly held up by Ukrainian forces on its way to the site. Russia has controlled the facility since March, and both Kyiv and Moscow publicly supported the visit by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.
• Lithuania offered to send its police forces to Zaporizhzhia as part of a U.N. peacekeeping force.Speaking at the U.N. Chiefs of Police Summit in New York Thursday, Arūnas Paulauskas, deputy commissioner of the Lithuanian police, said a U.N. police force could ensure the plant’s “physical security” alongside a long-term IAEA monitoring mission. “Lithuania would be prepared to play an active part and deploy law enforcement officers to such a mission,” he said.
• Ukraine began its academic school year Thursday, welcoming students back in ceremonies that showed both resilience and the war’s heavy toll. The Washington Post spoke to and photographed students and parents across the country to get a sense of the mood at the start of this unprecedented school year. Some students were required to carry “emergency backpacks” or practice air raid drills as part of their school’s opening ceremony. Others could not attend school in person because their school building had been bombed.

• “The Russian military is suffering from severe manning shortages in Ukraine,” a U.S. official told The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity. It’s likely that Russia’s Defense Ministry will move to recruit “contract service members to make up for these personnel shortages, including by compelling wounded soldiers to reenter combat … and paying bonuses to conscripts.”
• In Ukraine’s south, the battle for Kherson has not “stalled or failed,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said Thursday. He urged patience, saying the fight for the strategic port city seized by Russia at the start of the war is being “carried out in a planned manner” and warning that “there will be no quick wins.” As part of its southern offensive, the Ukrainian Air Force is probably using “high speed anti-radiation missiles,” known as HARMs, which are designed to locate and destroy Russian radars, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its daily intelligence update Thursday. This could be a “a major set-back to Russia’s already troubled situational awareness,” it said.
• Ukrainian forces repelled four Russian attacks in the country’s east, Ukraine’s general staff said Thursday on Facebook. While attention has largely turned to Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south, fighting continues in the Donetsk oblast in the eastern region of Donbas….

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Here’s what we know:

Part of the I.A.E.A. mission departed the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after roughly four hours, but others remain to continue assessing its safety.

• The inspectors braved shelling as they crossed the front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces.

• With war raging near the plant, what can the U.N. inspectors accomplish?

• The Zaporizhzhia plant deployed emergency backup measures after it was struck by shelling.

• A Russian oil executive dies under murky circumstances.

• A Ukrainian player refused to shake the hand of the Belarusian she lost to at the U.S. Open.

• Improvements in U.N. security could help the nuclear agency as it navigates a combat zone in Ukraine.

• Pencil, chalk and first-aid kits: Ukrainian children return to school in the midst of war….

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image…UN Nuclar experts ….Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times