Global Breath Intake
Global Breath Intake
"Russia has consciously undertaken an armed attack on the nuclear power site, an action that violated all international agreements within the IAEA.""[Plant staff] are monitoring the condition of power units and ensuring their operation [is] in accordance with the requirements of technical regulations for safe operation."Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs"The city is in a very, very difficult state of siege.""Relentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, airplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas."Mayor Vadym Boychenko, Mariupol"The Russian side is not holding to the ceasefire and has continued firing on Mariupol itself and on its surrounding area.""Talks with the Russian Federation are ongoing regarding setting up a ceasefire and ensuring a safe humanitarian corridor."Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head, office of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
A view shows a damaged administrative building of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in Enerhodar, the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine in this handout picture released March 4, 2022 (National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom/Reuters) |
Moscow
is outdoing itself in risk-taking in its decision to blow right past
all warning inhibitions by responsible governmental and international
agencies of the extreme danger inherent in a conflict situation taking
place in a geographic area housing nuclear power plants. Nuclear plants
have been around for half a century but never before has a conflict
situation seen deliberate targeting of a nuclear installation for the
purpose of making it a trophy possession and risking an accident of
monumental proportions.
Russia
is attacking Ukraine on many fronts with its forces besieging and
bombarding towns and cities non-stop. Kyiv is in direct danger of an
overwhelming invasion itself with a huge Russian armoured column sitting
for the time being outside the capital as though awaiting further
orders to proceed. The convoy, stretching for miles, may very well be
bogged down in spring melt, a phenomenon known to have occurred during
other military incursions when the massive weight of military equipment
stalled as snow and ice recede.
Mariupol,
the city that Vladimir Putin slavers to annex as a direct land link for
Russia to access Crimea, is under heavy shelling, its mayor announcing
there was no water, no heat, nor electricity. Moreover the port city in
the southeast, after almost a week of encirclement and attack, is
running out of food. "We are simply being destroyed", said Mayor Vadym Boychenko.
People cross a destroyed bridge as they evacuate the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, during heavy shelling and bombing on Saturday. More than one million people have fled Ukraine's borders since the invasion by Russia began on Feb. 24. (Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images) |
Refugees
from eastern Ukraine have been steadily moving toward the country's
west in the direction of borders with its neighbours, anxious to escape
the fate of thousands of their compatriots who have died since the start
of the invasion. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant attack was a
perilous moment of high tension. With shells hitting the area of the
plant, a blaze began in a training building leading to global alarm of
the dread consequences until firemen were able to extinguish the flames.
While
the plant's Ukrainian operators are still in charge of the plant and
its safety, the nuclear complex of six reactors is now in Russian hands.
According to IAEA chief Raphael Grossi, there was no real damage
sustained by the plant, but one only of its six reactors was working
with about 60 percent capacity. There was relief when it was announced
that there was no radiation leaks and the plant was working normally.
Surveillance camera footage shows the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine on Friday. (Zaporizhzhya NPP via Reuters) |
The
Russian defence ministry, with the plant now controlled by Russian
troops, blamed the fire on a Ukrainian saboteur attack. Germany's
foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, stated that Russia was steadily
increasing strikes on civilian areas "with the most brutal rigour". Leading Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz to phone Putin demanding the war be stopped.
Russia's
response, as expected, was that it does not target civilians; its aim
is solely to disarm Ukraine. Its focus in Ukraine is a campaign to
counter NATO aggression and support of the Ukraine government under
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The intention is to capture the neo-Nazis
representing the government. A perversion of reality in fact, since it
is Russia's Vladimir Putin whose fascism has been revealed in his
unprovoked attack on a neighbour.
Neighbours and relatives help remove the rubble of a house destroyed amid shelling in Markhalivka on Saturday. (Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images) |
At
the southern port city of Mykolayiv, Russian troops had entered, but
the advance was halted by Ukrainian defences. Had it been captured the
city with a population of a half-million would represent the largest
Ukrainian city yet to fall to the Russian invasion. "We
can feel cautious optimism about the future prospects of the enemy
offensive -- I think that it will be stopped in other areas also", said government adviser Oleksi Arestovych.
Kherson,
in the south, the first sizable Ukrainian city, was captured by Russian
forces this week. Thousands of its undaunted people mounted a protest
waving Ukrainian flags, shouting "Kherson is Ukraine!" In the northeast
cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv, bombimg has become more intense.
Neither the Kremlin nor the Russian president are particularly seized
over the deaths of civilians and mounting casualties of their
bombardments.
Getty Images |
Russia
has reverted to the tyrannical rule of a despot, where opponents of the
government are mostly incarcerated in prison with trumped-up charges of
undermining the state; others forced into exile. Further dissent has
led to crackdowns where authorities now have banned any reports whose
language is offensive to Russian aims in Ukraine. Verbiage in reference
to "special military operation", substituting the word "war" is off
limits.
Thousands
of arrests of anti-war demonstrators have taken place. Access to
foreign news source websites has been cut for spreading "false
information:" about Russia's peacekeeping mission in Ukraine and its
intent to save the country from the machinations of nationalist
war-mongers. A prison term of up to 15 years was passed into law on
Friday, for spreading intentionally "fake news" about the Russian
military's presence in Ukraine.
Refugees from Ukraine are seen on the other side of their journey, at a distribution centre in Korczowa, Poland, on Saturday. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images) |
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