A bright flaring object lands in grounds of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Russian forces shelled Europe's largest nuclear plant early Friday in the battle for control of a crucial energy-producing city, and the power station was on fire.
Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television that shells were falling directly on the Zaporizhzhia plant and had set fire to one of the facility's six reactors. That reactor is under renovation and not operating, but there is nuclear fuel inside, he said.
The fire has since been extinguished.
Russian forces have seized a Ukrainian nuclear plant that supplies power to a fifth of the country.
"The territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is occupied by the armed forces of the Russian Federation," the agency said of the site in Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest.
But the State Inspectorate for Nuclear Regulation says employees are continuing to work on the premise.
"One out of six power units is working," the local authority in charge of the plant wrote on Facebook.
"All over the territory of Zaporizhzhya region, the situation is tense and difficult. The actions of the Russian occupation forces are a direct violation of the Gaza and Geneva convention."
Officials warn any damage to the plant could cause a disaster 10 times worse than Chernobyl.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reportedly survived three assassination attempted in the last week alone.
The Times in the UK reports that mercenaries from the Kremlin-backed Wagner Group and Chechen special forces have both attempted to kill the Ukrainian president in the last week but all three attempts were unsuccessful.
According to reports, the assassination attempts failed thanks to subversive anti-war members within Russia's Federal Security Services (FSB), the country's successor to the KGB, who alerted Ukraine officials.
The Ukraine Secretary of National Security and Defense has confirmed the three foiled assassination attempts.
He told local media he received the information from double agent "who do not want to take part in this bloody war".
A fire threatening Europe's largest nuclear power plant has been extinguished.
A training building near the plant in south-eastern Ukraine went up in flames and burned for four hours following shelling by invading Russian troops.
An update published on Ukraine's State Emergency Services official Telegram account says the fire is now out and there are no causalities.
Ukraine's foreign minister earlier said a disaster at the plant would be worse than Chernobyl.
Ukraine's second-largest city is in ruins after several days of Russian bombardment.
Local research director Maria Avdeeva, who has remained in the city despite days of carnage, took to Twitter to share chilling footage of the damage done to her hometown.
"Putin this minute at a Security Council meeting: Russians and Ukrainians are one people, I will never refuse this. At the same time – Russian speaking city Kharkiv is cynically destroyed by Russian bombs," Ms Avdeeva wrote.
The mayor of Kharkiv, in Ukraine's east, accused the Russian military of "intentionally trying to eliminate Ukrainian people" as it continues to fire on residential buildings.
"The situation is extremely difficult," Mayor Ihor Terekhov told CNN on Friday.
"To date, Kharkiv has been hard impacted by continuous bombardment. Planes are flying constantly, (rockets) are being launched, grenades are launched, and residential houses are being hit."
Terekhov said there were no Ukrainian troops guarding residential blocks.
"That means that they are purposefully hitting the residential buildings," he said.
Ukrainian authorities said residential and other areas in Kharkiv had been "pounded all night" by indiscriminate shelling, which UN prosecutors are investigating as a possible war crime.
Putin this minute at a Security Council meeting: Russians and Ukrainians are one people, I will never refuse this.
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) March 3, 2022
At the same time – Russian speaking city Kharkiv is cynically destroyed by Russian bombs. pic.twitter.com/gPAeriFpke
For the eight days of #PutinsWar 157 people were killed in Kharkiv, including four children. pic.twitter.com/r1Fn3xjwhd
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) March 3, 2022
The office of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will seek an emergency UN Security Council meeting after Russian troops in Ukraine attacked a nuclear power plant and sparked a fire.
Johnson's office says he spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the early hours of the morning. He says Britain will raise the issue immediately with Russia and close partners.
Johnson's office says he and Zelenskyy agree Russia must immediately cease attacking and allow emergency services unfettered access to the plant. The two agree a ceasefire is essential.
"The Prime Minister said the reckless actions of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe," Johnson's office said in a statement. "He said (the United Kingdom) would do everything it could to ensure the situation did not deteriorate further."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he also spoke with Zelenskyy about the attacks on the power plant.
"These unacceptable attacks by Russia must cease immediately," he said on Twitter.
As Europe's largest nuclear power plant was in flames following shelling by Russia, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent out a video on social media filmed on his cell phone seemingly from his bomb shelter, calling on all Europeans to "wake up" to the threat of nuclear war posed by Putin.
Терміново! pic.twitter.com/MuXfniddVT
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 4, 2022
"Europe must wake up now. The largest nuclear station in Europe is on fire. Right now Russian tanks are shelling nuclear units. Those are the tanks that have thermal vision, so they know where they are shelling. They prepared for it," he said.
"I address all Ukrainians and all Europeans to all people who know the word Chernobyl who know how much suffering and victims were caused by the explosion at the nuclear station. It was a global disaster. Hundreds of thousands of people fought against its consequences. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated," Zelenskyy added.
"Europeans, please, wake up. Tell your politicians, Russian troops are shelling [the] Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, the city of Enerhodar. There are 6 energy unit. Six. One unit exploded in Chernobyl.
"We warn everyone that not a single nation ever shelled nuclear power stations. For the first time in the history of humankind, the terrorist state commits nuclear terrorism," he continued.
"Russian propagandists threatened to cover the world with nuclear ashes. Now it's not a threat. It's a reality. We don't know how the fire at the station will end, when an explosion will happen, god willing, it won't happen. Our guys always kept the station safe, so there were no provocations, so that nobody could seize the station, so that nobody could plant mines at the station then blackmail the whole world with a nuclear disaster.
"We must stop Russian troops. Tell your politicians: Ukraine is 15 nuclear units. If there will be an explosion, it will the end to all of us, the end of Europe, the evacuation of Europe. Only immediate action of Europe can stop Russian troops and prevent the death of Europe from the disaster at a nuclear station."
Ukrainian authorities say the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is now secured, after a fire broke out Friday when the station came under fire from invading Russian forces.
"The director of the plant said that the nuclear safety is now guaranteed," Oleksandr Starukh, head of the military administration of the Zaporizhzhia region, said on Facebook.
"According to those responsible for the plant, a training building and a laboratory were affected by the fire."
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Twitter that it's been informed by Ukraine's nuclear regulator that "there has been no change reported in radiation levels" at a nuclear power station shelled by Russian troops.
The agency said its Director General Mariano Grossi was in touch with Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Schmygal and the Ukrainian regulator and operator about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Grossi "appeals for halt of use of force and warns of severe danger if reactors hit," the IAEA said in another tweet.
An official in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, not authorised to speak publicly and speaking on condition of anonymity, said the reactors have not yet been damaged and radiation levels are normal.
Russian spies have reportedly drawn up plans to carry out public executions in Ukrainian cities.
The Federal Security Service, Russia's intelligence agency, is said to be ready to carry out summary justice if its invasion is a success, The Sun reports.
Key political leaders from the Ukrainian administration are likely to be targeted.
The agency is also planning to detain rebel leaders and ruthlessly suppress public protests, a security official who has seen intercepted FSB reports told Bloomberg.
Ukraine's national security secretary has already revealed that the country recently foiled a plot by the FSB to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Vladimir Putin is a former chief of the FSB, the main successor of the Societ Union's feared KGB.
Firefighters could not get near the fire at the nuclear plant because they are being shot at, Tuz said.
A government official told The Associated Press that elevated levels of radiation were detected near the site of the plant, which provides about 25 per cent of Ukraine's power generation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been publicly released.
Tuz said it is urgent to stop the fighting to put out the flames.
Zelensky issues an urgent new message warning that Russian artillery fire at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant risks a nuclear radiation catastrophe that threatens the entire continent. “You know the word Chernobyl,” he says grimly. pic.twitter.com/j8OjaqdLXH
— Kevin Rothrock (@KevinRothrock) March 4, 2022
The fighting at Enerhodar, a city on the Dnieper River, came as another round of talks between the two sides yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors inside Ukraine to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid.
Elsewhere, Russian forces gained ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea, as Ukrainian leaders called on citizens to rise up and wage guerrilla war against the invaders.
Flares and clashes at the #Zaporizhia nuclear facility. Black smoke and fire. You can see armored vehicles and tanks. #Zaporizhzhia #Zaporozhye #Zaporijya #nuclear #nükleer #UkraineRussianWar @nexta_tv #Zelenskyy #yangın @KhalilovaGulsum pic.twitter.com/FPowaSsSaL
— Eray Aksoy (@olmadicayiceriz) March 4, 2022
⚡️⚡️⚡️Surveillance cameras captured moments of the shelling of the #Zaporizhzhia NPP pic.twitter.com/ZNLX4pZeXI
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 4, 2022
While the huge Russian armored column threatening Kyiv appeared bogged down outside the capital, Vladimir Putin's forces have brought their superior firepower to bear over the past few days, launching hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks on cities and other sites around the country and making significant gains in the south.
The mayor of Enerhodar said Ukrainian forces were battling Russian troops on the city's outskirts. Video showed flames and black smoke rising above the city of more than 50,000, with people streaming past wrecked cars, just a day after the U.N. atomic watchdog agency expressed grave concern that the fighting could cause accidental damage to Ukraine's 15 nuclear reactors.
Mayor Dmytro Orlov and the Ukrainian state atomic energy company reported that a Russian military column was heading toward the nuclear plant. Loud shots and rocket fire were heard late Thursday.
"Many young men in athletic clothes and armed with Kalashnikovs have come into the city. They are breaking down doors and trying to get into the apartments of local residents," the statement from Energoatom said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on the West to close the skies over the country's nuclear plants as fighting intensified. "It is a question of the security of the whole world!" he said in a statement.
The U.S. and NATO allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would pit Russian and Western military forces against each other.
The Russians announced the capture of the southern city of Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 280,000, and local Ukrainian officials confirmed the takeover of the government headquarters there, making it the first major city to fall since the invasion began a week ago.
Heavy fighting continued on the outskirts of another strategic port, Mariupol, on the Azov Sea. The battles have knocked out the city's electricity, heat and water systems, as well as most phone service, officials said. Food deliveries to the city were also cut.
Associated Press video from the port city shows the assault lighting up the darkening sky above largely deserted streets and medical teams treating civilians, including one inside a clinic who appeared to be a child. Doctors were unable to save the person.
Severing Ukraine's access to the Black and Azov seas would deal a crippling blow to its economy and allow Russia to build a land corridor to Crimea, seized by Moscow in 2014.
Overall, the outnumbered, outgunned Ukrainians have put up stiff resistance, staving off the swift victory that Russia appeared to have expected. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia's seizure of Crimea gave it a logistical advantage in that part of the country, with shorter supply lines that smoothed the offensive there.
Ukrainian leaders called on the people to defend their homeland by cutting down trees, erecting barricades in the cities and attacking enemy columns from the rear. In recent days, authorities have issued weapons to civilians and taught them how to make Molotov cocktails.
"Total resistance. ... This is our Ukrainian trump card, and this is what we can do best in the world," Oleksiy Arestovich, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a video message, recalling guerrilla actions in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II.
In a video address to the nation, Zelenskyy praised his country's resistance.
The Russians "will have no peace here. They will have no food," he said. "They will have not one quiet moment."
The second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations was held in neighboring Belarus. But the two sides appeared far apart going into the meeting, and Putin warned Ukraine that it must quickly accept the Kremlin's demand for its "demilitarization" and declare itself neutral, renouncing its bid to join NATO.
Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron he was determined to press on with his attack "until the end," according to Macron's office.
The two sides said that they tentatively agreed to allow cease-fires in areas designated safe corridors, and that they would seek to work out the necessary details quickly. A Zelenskyy adviser also said a third round of talks will be held early next week.
Despite a profusion of evidence of civilian casualties and destruction of property by the Russian military, Putin decried what he called an "anti-Russian disinformation campaign" and insisted that Moscow uses "only precision weapons to exclusively destroy military infrastructure."
Putin claimed that the Russian military had already offered safe corridors for civilians to flee, but he asserted without evidence that Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" were preventing people from leaving and were using them as human shields.
He also hailed Russian soldiers as heroes in a video call with members of Russia's Security Council, and ordered additional payments to families of men killed or wounded.
A top Russian officer, Maj. Gen. Andrei Sukhovetsky, commander of an airborne division, was killed in the fighting earlier this week, an officers organization in Russia reported.
The Pentagon set up a direct communication link to Russia's Ministry of Defense earlier this week to avoid the possibility of a miscalculation sparking conflict between Moscow and Washington, according to a U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the link had not been announced.
The fighting has sent more than 1 million people fleeing Ukraine, according to the U.N., which fears those refugee numbers could skyrocket.
Ukrainians still in the country faced another grim day. In Kyiv, snow gave way to a cold, gray drizzle, as long lines formed outside the few pharmacies and bakeries that remained open.
More shelling was reported in the northern city of Chernihiv, where emergency officials said at least 33 civilians had been killed in the bombardment of a residential area.
Families with children fled via muddy and snowy roads in the eastern region of Donetsk, while military strikes on the village of Yakovlivka destroyed 30 homes, leaving three people dead, authorities said.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, with about 1.4 million people, residents desperate to escape the bombings crowded the railroad station and squeezed onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.
In the south, Russian troops appeared to roll from Kherson toward Mykolaiv, another major Black Sea port and shipbuilding center to the west. A U.S. defense official said the Russians may want to set up a base in Mykolaiv ahead of a ground offensive against Odesa, Ukraine's largest port city, which is also home to a large naval base.
The immense Russian column of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles still appeared to be stalled roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Kyiv and had made no real progress in days, amid fuel and food shortages, according to U.S. authorities.
Russia has fired more than 480 missiles in the invasion, according to the U.S. Ukrainian officials boasted that their missile-defense systems shot down many of them.
At least 227 civilians have been killed and 525 wounded, according to the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, though it acknowledged that is a vast undercount, and Ukraine said more than 2,000 civilians have died. The figures could not be independently verified.
Russia reported its military casualties Wednesday for the first time in the war, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine insisted Russia's losses are many times higher but did not disclose its own military casualties.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the West of acting too late to protect his country from Russia's invasion, saying "the end of the world has arrived".
Speaking during a press conference on Thursday, the Ukrainian President called on the West to increase military aid to Ukraine, saying Russia would advance on the rest of Europe otherwise.
He repeated his plea for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone – something members including the US and UK have ruled out for fear of igniting a direct war with nuclear-armed Russia.
"If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!" Zelenskyy said. "If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next. Believe me."
"[Russia] brought crematoriums with them... we don't want to kill them"
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) March 3, 2022
Ukrainian President Zelensky tells a press conference "the end of the world has arrived"https://t.co/W8jtiNhp4p pic.twitter.com/nGkMiIKTg4
Zelenskyy said he now had good communication with US President Joe Biden and other leaders, but claimed they only stepped up their support after the invasion.
"It's a pity it began after the beginning of this war, but we have it," he said. "And my appreciation to (Biden) and to his team. We can speak now often. The whole world is late with Ukraine, making decisions."
Zelenskyy — who just weeks ago sought to calm Ukrainians over US allegations that Russia was planning to invade his country — said that "nobody thought that in the modern world a man can behave like a beast."
He repeated a claim that Russia has brought mobile crematoriums to Ukraine in order to hide its losses.
"It is simply a nightmare, I simply don't understand what sort of person could plan such an act," he said. "That is Nazism and genocide. I feel embarrassed that now in the 21st century that today there are such acts. People say forget about this and that, about apocalypse, the end of the world – the end of the world has arrived."
Zelenskyy also addressed Putin directly today, inviting him to sit down and talk.
"Good Lord, what do you want? Leave our land. If you don't want to leave now, sit down with me at the negotiating table. But not from 30 meters away, like with Macron and Scholz. Sit down with me and talk. What are you afraid of?," he said.
Zelensky to Putin: "Good Lord, what do you want? Leave our land. If you don't want to leave now, sit down with me at the negotiating table. But not from 30 meters away, like with Macron and Scholz. Sit down with me and talk. What are you afraid of? We're no threat to anyone." pic.twitter.com/CNsLj2yQ1N
— max seddon (@maxseddon) March 3, 2022
- Additional reporting by news.com.au and nzherald.co.nz
US President Donald Trump had angrily berated both sides for violating the ceasefire.