The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency will travel to Ukraine next week to set up a constant presence of safety experts at all of the country’s nuclear power plants.

“Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will be in Ukraine next week to establish a continuous presence of nuclear safety and security experts at all the country’s nuclear power facilities, significantly stepping up the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help prevent a nuclear accident during the current military conflict,” according to the statement from the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

While the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant already has IAEA team members on location, experts will also be stationed at the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant in western Ukraine in “the coming days.” The IAEA said Grossi will travel to the South Ukraine and Rivne nuclear power plants — as well as to the Chernobyl site — to set up the missions of two IAEA members at each site.

Grossi will also meet with senior Ukrainian government officials in Kyiv to discuss setting up a repeatedly called-for nuclear safety and security protection zone around Zaporizhzhia. Kyiv has accused Russia of using the plant as cover to launch attacks, knowing that Ukraine could not return fire without risking hitting one of the plant’s six reactors. Moscow, meanwhile, claimed Ukrainian troops were targeting the site.

According to the statement, the Zaporizhzhia plant’s last remaining 330 kilovolt backup power line has been reconnected to the plant, after experiencing disconnections in the last week.

Grossi also “reiterated his serious concerns about the pressure that ZNPP staff are facing, with potential consequences for nuclear safety and security,” according to the statement.

“The reduced ZNPP staffing levels combined with psychological stress due to the on-going military conflict and the absence of family members who fled the area have created an unprecedented situation that no NPP staff should have to endure,” he said.

A Ukrainian soldier fighting in the eastern town of Soledar told CNN that the situation is “critical” and the death toll is now so high that “no one counts the dead.” 

The soldier is from the 46th air mobile brigade, which is leading Ukraine’s fight to hold onto Soledar in the face of a massive assault from Russian troops and Wagner mercenaries.

CNN is not identifying him for security reasons. 

He described a dynamic battlefield where buildings change hands daily and units can’t keep track of the escalating death toll. “No one will tell you how many dead and wounded there are. Because no one knows for sure. Not a single person,” he said. “Not at the headquarters. Not anywhere. Positions are being taken and re-taken constantly. What was our house today, becomes Wagner’s the next day.”

The soldier said it was unclear as of Tuesday night how much of the town was held by the Russians: “No one can definitely say who moved where and who holds what, because no one knows for sure. There is a huge grey area in the city that everyone claims to control, [but] it’s just any empty hype.”

The Ukrainians have lost many troops in Soledar but the ranks are being replenished as the fight for the mining town continues, he said: “The personnel of our units have been renewed by almost half, more or less. We do not even have time to memorize each other’s call signs [when new personnel arrive].”

The soldier said that he believed Ukraine’s military leaders would eventually abandon the fight for Soledar and questioned why they hadn’t done this yet. “Everyone understands that the city will be abandoned. Everyone understands this,” he said. “I just want to understand what the point [in fighting house to house] is. Why die, if we are going to leave it anyway today or tomorrow?”

Some context: The 46th air mobile brigade said on its Telegram channel on Tuesday that the situation in Soledar was “very difficult, but manageable.” 

In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the soldiers of the brigade “for their bravery and steadfastness in defending Soledar.”

Russian troops are making another attempt to advance on the small town of Soledar near Bakhmut in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said on Telegram Monday.

“After an unsuccessful [previous] attempt to capture Soledar and retreat, the enemy regrouped, restored losses, deployed additional assault units, changed tactics and launched a powerful assault,” Maliar said. “At the moment, the enemy has engaged a large number of assault groups formed from the best reserves of the Wagner’s troops. The enemy is advancing literally on the corpses of their own soldiers, massively using artillery, multiple rocket launchers and mortars, covering even their own fighters with fire.”

Earlier on Monday, Serhii Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, told Ukrainian TV that Russia had “managed to concentrate more of its units” around Soledar and was deploying both “regular” troops and mercenaries working for the private sector group Wagner there.

The head of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Sunday that one of the reasons he wanted to take over Bakhmut and Soledar in order to control the system of mines in that area, which he described as “a network of underground cities.”

Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said they were trying to evacuate civilians from Soledar but not everyone was willing to leave.

“Soledar is actually destroyed,” he said. “There are residents there. Everything is being done to evacuate them. It is difficult to talk about the numbers now. There is a part of people, especially the older generation, who have a great fear of change, of leaving their homes and to move somewhere. We are communicating with them, but not always everyone agrees [to leave].”

On Sunday night, President Volodymr Zelensky said that Soledar was “holding out” but it was “extremely hard.”

Germany plans to deliver around 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine in the first three months of the new year, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said Friday.

”We want to equip a battalion. A battalion consists of around 40 (Marder infantry fighting) vehicles — depending on their design. We plan to hand over 40 Marders to Ukraine in the first quarter,” Hebestreit said.

In addition to armored Marder infantry fighting vehicles, Germany also vowed to supply Ukraine with a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system from army stocks — also to be delivered to Ukraine in the first quarter of 2023, Hebestreit said. 

What we know about the Marder infantry vehicle: The Marder is designed to move soldiers around the battlefield. It has been used by the German military since the early 1970s but continuously upgraded. The military is in the process of phasing it out, but hundreds are still in service.

Training on the Marder vehicle is to take place on German soil, Hebestreit said, adding that it will last about eight weeks. 

Hebestreit said that the US will also train Ukrainians on its Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, but added that it is not yet known whether the training will take place in the US or in Germany.

Hebestreit said that German chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are set to hold a phone call on Friday.

Russia has condemned the move: The Russian Embassy in Berlin slammed Germany’s decision to send the vehicles and Patriot battery, issuing a statement that called the move a “further step towards an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine.”

The embassy tied its criticism to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unilateral ceasefire order this week, which Ukraine has dismissed as a ploy to buy time for resupply.

“Its adoption looks particularly cynical on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas holiday, which is highly revered in the Christian world, and also against the background of the ceasefire unilaterally declared by the Russian President,” the embassy statement reads.

The Russian officials also claimed the move was the result of undue US influence, saying there was “no doubt that Berlin decided to carry it out under serious pressure from Washington, acting in accordance with the destructive logic of transatlantic solidarity.”

Ukraine’s military on Tuesday alleged another devastating attack on Russian troops had taken place.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said around 500 Russian troops were either killed or wounded in a hit near Chulakivka, a town in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, on New Year’s Eve.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian armed forces in the south, told Ukrainian television: “This is one of our achievements in this direction of the front.” 

“There will be more because we identify the enemy’s locations,” she said of the alleged hit.

CNN cannot verify the Ukrainian claim. Moscow has not publicly commented on the Chulakivka claim. 

However, a widely read Russian war blogger known as “Operation Z” said in a Telegram post on Tuesday “there is no f***ing denying” that Ukraine is now targeting barracks and other Russian troop strongholds with HIMARS, a reference to High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems. He included Chulakivka in his list of hits on Russian troops he said had taken place in December.

It comes after both Russian and Ukrainian authorities acknowledged a strike that took place just after midnight on New Year’s Day at a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region.

The Russian Defense Ministry says 89 servicemen were killed in the New Year’s Day strike, which would make it one of the deadliest single episodes of the war for Moscow’s forces.

Explosions were heard Kyiv Thursday, according to CNN’s team on the ground, while air defense systems have been activated in the capital region, said Oleksii Kuleba, head of the Kyiv regional military administration.

Air raid sirens have also sounded in several cities as officials reported missile strikes and air defense systems being activated. 

A series of explosions were also heard in Kharkiv, the city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said, adding that according to preliminary reports incoming rocket hits were recorded.

“Information on which targets were hit and whether there were any casualties is still being clarified,” Terekhov said.

In the Mykolaiv region in the south, five missiles have been intercepted over the sea, the head of the region’s military administration Vitaliy Kim said. 

In central Ukraine, missiles have also been recorded in the Zhytomyr region and air defense systems were activated, according to Vitalii Bunechko, head of its regional military administration.

In Poltava region, east of the Dnipro river, explosions have also been heard and air defense systems were activated, Dmytro Lunin, said the head of Poltava regional military administration. 

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has neutralized more than 4,500 cyberattacks on the country this year, an official said Monday.

Ilya Vitiuk, head of the SBU cybersecurity department said in a statement that Ukraine had “entered 2022 with eight years of hybrid warfare experience behind us,” adding that “at the time of the invasion, we were already ready for the worst scenarios.”

“And the massive cyberattacks that we repelled in January and February became additional ‘training’ before the invasion,” he said.

The scale of cyberattacks is now much wider, particularly compared to previous years, he said. In 2020, nearly 800 cyberattacks were recorded, while in 2021 it jumped to 1,400, and in 2022 the number increased more than three times.

“Today, the aggressor country launches an average of more than 10 cyberattacks per day. Fortunately, Ukrainian society does not even know about most of them,” Vitiuk said.

He added that attackers are most likely to target energy, logistics, military facilities, government databases and information resources.