Evacuations from the front line around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant prompted safety warnings from the UN nuclear watchdog on Saturday, as a string of recent strikes escalate predictions of a looming spring counteroffensive. Moscow has blamed Kyiv — and its Western supporters — for an escalating number of long-range attacks and sabotage operations, including on the Kremlin. A car bomb on Saturday wounded prominent nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin and killed his assistant in an attack Moscow pinned on both Kyiv and Washington. The head of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner meanwhile asked Moscow to let Chechen fighters relieve his forces at the flashpoint city of Bakmut in eastern Ukraine. Citing stepped-up shellings by Kyiv, Moscow has ordered families with children and elderly to temporarily evacuate a slew of Russian-held areas in southern Ukraine, including the town near Europe’s largest nuclear plant.