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JUST IN: Russians Seize Ukraine Nuclear Plant As War Intensifies

Published

4 years ago

March 4, 2022

Russian troops Friday seized the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe after a middle-of-the-night attack that set it on fire and briefly raised worldwide fears of a catastrophe in the most chilling turn yet in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Firefighters put out the blaze, and no radiation was released, U.N. and Ukrainian officials said, as Russian forces pressed on with their week-old offensive on multiple fronts and the number of refugees fleeing the country eclipsed 1.2 million.

With world condemnation mounting, the Kremlin cracked down on the flow of information at home, blocking Facebook, Twitter, the BBC and the U.S. government-funded Voice of America.

And President Vladimir Putin signed a law making it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison to spread so-called fake news, including anything that goes against the official government line on the war.

While the vast Russian armored column threatening Kyiv remained stalled outside the capital, Putin’s military has launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites around the country, and made significant gains on the ground in the south in an apparent bid to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea.

In the atttack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, the chief of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center, not any of the six reactors.

The attack triggered global alarm and fear of a catastrophe that could dwarf the world’s worst nuclear disaster, at Ukraine’s Chernobyl in 1986.

In an emotional nighttime speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he feared an explosion that would be “the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe.”

But nuclear officials from Sweden to China said no radiation spikes had been reported, as did Grossi.

Authorities said that Russian troops had taken control of the overall site but that the plant staff continued to run it. Only one reactor was operating, running at 60% of capacity, Grossi said in the aftermath of the attack.

Two people were injured in the fire, Grossi said. Ukraine’s state nuclear plant operator Enerhoatom said three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two wounded.

In the U.S., Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the episode “underscores the recklessness with which the Russians have been perpetrating this unprovoked invasion.”

At an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, said the fire broke out as a result of Russian shelling of the plant and accused Moscow of committing “an act of nuclear terrorism.”

Without producing evidence, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that a Ukrainian “sabotage group” had set the fire at Zaporozhizhia.

The crisis unfolded after Grossi earlier in the week expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors at four plants around the country.

Atomic safety experts said a war fought amid nuclear reactors represents an unprecedented and highly dangerous situation.

“These plants are now in a situation that few people ever seriously contemplated when they were originally built,” said Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington. “No nuclear plant has been designed to withstand a potential threat of a full-scale military attack.”

Dr. Alex Rosen of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War said the incident was probably the result of military units overestimating the precision of their weapons, given that the prevailing winds would have carried any radioactive fallout straight toward Russia.

“Russia cannot have any interest in contaminating its own territory,” he said. He said the danger comes not just from the reactors but from the risk of enemy fire hitting storage facilities that hold spent fuel rods.

In the wake of the attack, Zelenskyy appealed again to the West to enforce a no-fly zone over his country. But NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg ruled out that possibility, citing the risk of a much wider war in Europe. He said that to enforce a no-fly zone, NATO planes would have to shoot down Russian aircraft.

“We understand the desperation, but we also believe that if we did that, we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe,” Stoltenberg said.

The plant fire was the second time since the invasion began that concerns about a potential nuclear accident arose, following a battle at the heavily contaminated site of the now-decommissioned Chernobyl plant.

Russian forces, meanwhile, pressed their offensive in the southern part of the country. Severing Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov would deal a severe blow to its economy and could worsen an already dire humanitarian situation.

A round of talks between Russia and Ukraine yielded a tentative agreement Thursday to set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and deliver food and medicine. But the necessary details still had to be worked out.

The U.N. human rights office said 331 civilians had been confirmed killed in the invasion but that the true number is probably much higher.

In Romania, one newly arrived refugee, Anton Kostyuchyk, struggled to hold back tears as he recounted leaving everything behind in Kyiv and sleeping in churches with his wife and three children during their journey out.

“I’m leaving my home, my country. I was born there, and I lived there,” he said. “And what now?”

Appearing on video in a message to antiwar protesters in several European cities, Zelenskyy continued to appeal for help.

“If we fall, you will fall,” he said. “And if we win, and I’m sure we’ll win, this will be the victory of the whole democratic world. This will be the victory of our freedom. This will be the victory of light over darkness, of freedom over slavery.”

Inside Ukraine, frequent shelling could be heard in the center of Kyiv, though more distant than in recent days, with loud thudding every 10 minutes resonating over the rooftops.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said battles involving airstrikes and artillery continued northwest of Kyiv, and the northeastern cities of Kharkiv and Okhtyrka came under heavy fire.

He said Ukrainian forces were still holding the northern city of Chernihiv and had prevented Russian efforts to take the important southern city of Mykolaiv. Ukrainian artillery also defended Odesa from repeated attempts by Russian ships to fire on the Black Sea port, Arestovic said. Odesa is Ukraine’s biggest port city and home to a large naval base.

The Ukrainian Navy scuttled its flagship at the shipyard where it was undergoing repairs to keep the frigate from being seized by the Russians, authorities said.

Another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, was “partially under siege,” and Ukrainian forces were pushing back efforts to surround the city, Arestovich said. The fighting has knocked out the city’s electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said.

“The humanitarian situation is tense,” he said.

Amid the warfare, there were occasional signs of hope.

As explosions sounded on the fringes of Kyiv, Dmytro Shybalov and Anna Panasyk smiled and blushed at the civil registry office where they married Friday. They fell in love in 2015 in Donetsk amid the fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces that was a precursor to the countrywide war.

“It’s 2022 and the situation hasn’t changed,” Shybalov said. “It’s scary to think what will happen when our children will be born.”

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Kimmel’s Suspension: Obama Slams Trump For ‘Dangerous’ Attack On Free Speech

Published

2 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Former United States President Barack Obama has condemned the suspension of the late-night show hosted by Jimmy Kimmel following remarks he made about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

In a post on X on Thursday, Obama described the suspension of the show as a dangerous attack on free speech led by President Donald Trump.

He wrote, “After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.

“This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”

Obama’s comments came after ABC, owned by Walt Disney, announced on Wednesday that Jimmy Kimmel Live had been suspended indefinitely.

The decision followed threats of a federal investigation into Kimmel’s remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk, a close Trump ally who was shot and killed on September 10 while debating students at a Utah university.

During Monday’s broadcast, Kimmel accused Kirk’s supporters of using his assassination to “score political points.” At least one local ABC affiliate had already announced plans to stop airing the program before the network’s decision.

The suspension has sparked backlash from free speech advocates, who argue that the administration’s actions amount to political censorship.

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Ghana To Take More West African Deportees From US

Published

2 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Ghana will receive another 40 West Africans deported from the United States in the coming days, Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said, after the government revealed last week a deal had been struck with Washington.

Deporting people to third countries instead of their home nations has been a hallmark of US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, notably by sending hundreds to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

Ghana President John Mahama announced last week that 14 deportees from the region had been sent to the country, sparking questions over their current whereabouts and pushback from the political opposition.

“On humanitarian grounds, pan-African solidarity, let us accept our fellow West Africans. And let’s make the point that Ghana is your home,” Ablakwa told Ghanaian broadcaster Channel1 TV late Wednesday.

He said the deportees, who are vetted before arrival, will be allowed to remain in Ghana temporarily, per regional visa-free travel rules, or return to their home countries.

The Ghanaian government previously said that many of the deported west Africans had already returned to their home countries — though lawyers in the United States say at least some of them are being held in military detention in Ghana in “cruel conditions”.

Five Nigerians and Gambians deported to Ghana were granted protection from deportation by immigration authorities in the United States, their lawyers said in a Tuesday statement.

If they continue on to their countries of origin, they risk “torture, persecution or death”, said Lee Gelernt, of the American Civil Liberties Union.

In an unprecedented move, Trump has overseen the deportation of hundreds of people to Panama, including some who were sent away before they could have their asylum applications processed.

Hundreds have also been sent to El Salvador, with the US administration invoking an 18th-century law to remove people it has accused of being Venezuelan gang members.

Some were sent despite US judges ordering the planes carrying them to turn around.

The deportation agreement with Ghana comes as Washington has hiked tariffs on Ghanaian goods and restricted visas issued to its nationals.

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Putin Has ‘Let Me Down’, Trump Laments As UK State Visit Ends

Published

3 hours ago

September 19, 2025

Editor

Donald Trump warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “really let me down” as he met Prime Minister Keir Starmer for wide-ranging talks on Thursday, the final day of the US president’s historic UK state visit.

A day after King Charles III treated Trump to royal pageantry at Windsor Castle, the Republican flew to Starmer’s Chequers country residence for talks on thorny issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Starmer has positioned himself as a bridge between Trump and European allies, particularly on the war in Ukraine, in a bid to secure more commitments for Kyiv from the US leader.

And his calls, repeated again on Thursday, for more international pressure on Putin appear to be gaining more traction with Trump, who slammed the Russian leader for continuing the war despite his efforts to stop the fighting.

Trump told a post-talks press conference that he had thought the Ukraine conflict would be the “easiest” to end “because of my relationship with President Putin, but he’s let me down. He’s really let me down.”

He urged European nations to stop buying Russian oil, saying that “if the price of oil comes down, Putin’s going to drop out of that war.”

– ‘Unbreakable bond’ –

Starmer’s warm tone with the 79-year-old Trump has won some leniency in the president’s tariff war, with the British leader saying Thursday the trade deal the two countries signed in May was the first by the US and also “the best”.

But Trump said that the pair had “one of our few disagreements” about the UK’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state.

The US leader also offered strong thoughts on illegal migration in the UK, revealing that “I told the Prime Minister I would stop it”, even if it meant calling in the military.

Earlier in the day, Trump hailed America’s “unbreakable bond” with Britain as he and Starmer signed a huge tech deal, boosting ties in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy.

At the signing ceremony attended by a host of US tech CEOs, Labour leader Starmer said he and Republican Trump were “leaders who genuinely like each other.”

The deal comes on the back of pledges of £150 billion ($205 billion) of investment into the UK from US giants including Microsoft, Google and Blackstone.

Trump had earlier said goodbye to King Charles at Windsor, calling him a “great gentleman and a great king” as he left the castle heading to Chequers.

Appealing to Trump’s admiration for British wartime leader Winston Churchill, Starmer led the US president on a tour of Churchill artifacts at Chequers.

Starmer is facing political troubles at home after sacking his ambassador to Washington, Peter Mandelson, over his connections to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Sex offender Epstein has also haunted Trump over recent weeks, with further revelations about the pair’s relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s.

– ‘Highest honours’ –

Having negotiated the potentially perilous press conference relatively unscathed, Starmer can claim some justification for granting Trump an unprecedented second state visit, with investment deals and deepening alignment on Ukraine to show for the diplomatic effort.

Trump was Wednesday lavished with the full pomp and circumstance of the British state — the second time it has done so, after his first visit in 2019.

“This is truly one of the highest honours of my life,” Trump said at the state banquet.

The king meanwhile hailed Trump’s peace efforts and support of Ukraine, after a day featuring gun salutes, soldiers on horseback, and bagpipes, all designed to appeal to the US president’s fascination with royalty.

But he also stressed to Trump the need to protect the environment for “our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them”.

Melania Trump remained in Windsor on Thursday morning, where she met scouts with Princess Catherine, and viewed Queen Mary’s Doll’s House with Queen Camilla.

The US first lady’s husband was kept far from the British public, with an estimated 5,000 people marching through central London Wednesday to protest against his visit.

Trump was due to return to Washington later Thursday.