WAR CRIMES

UN says it’s received ‘credible reports’ of cluster munitions by Russia in Ukraine

By AP

Bodies of civilians lie in a park in Irpin, north of Kyiv, on March 10, 2022. (Aris Messinis/AFP)

The United Nations human rights office has received “credible reports” that Russian forces are using cluster munitions in Ukraine, including in populated areas which is prohibited under international humanitarian law, the UN political chief.

Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo tells a UN Security Council meeting that residential areas and civilian infrastructure are being shelled in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv, and “the utter devastation being visited on these cities is horrific.”

Most of the civilian casualties recorded by the UN human rights office — 564 killed and 982 injured as of Thursday — “have been caused by explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” she says.

“Indiscriminate attacks, including those using cluster munitions, which are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction, are prohibited under international humanitarian law,” DiCarlo says. “Directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, as well as so-called area bombardment in towns and villages, are also prohibited under international law and may amount to war crimes.”

As of Thursday, the UN World Health Organization has verified 26 attacks on health facilities, health workers, and ambulances, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital, which caused 12 deaths and 34 injuries, DiCarlo says.

All alleged violations of international humanitarian law must be investigated and those found responsible must be held accountable, she says.

DiCarlo stresses that “the need for negotiations to stop the war in Ukraine could not be more urgent.”

‘They were shooting civilians’: Ukraine refugees saw abuses

By RAFAL NIEDZIELSKI

yesterday

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A Polish soldier holds a baby as refugees fleeing war in neighboring Ukraine arrive at the Medyka crossing border, Poland, Thursday, March 10, 2022.

 (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

PRZEMYSL, Poland (AP) — As more than 2 million refugees from Ukraine begin to scatter throughout Europe and beyond, some are carrying valuable witness evidence to build a case for potential war crimes.

More and more, the people who are turning up at border crossings are survivors who have fled some of the cities hardest hit by Russian forces.

“It was very eerie,” said Ihor Diekov, one of the many people who crossed the Irpin river outside Kyiv on the slippery wooden planks of a makeshift bridge after Ukrainians blew up the concrete span to slow the Russian advance.

He heard gunshots as he crossed and saw corpses along the road.

“The Russians promised to provide a (humanitarian) corridor which they did not comply with. They were shooting civilians,” he said. “That’s absolutely true. I witnessed it. People were scared.”

Such testimonies will increasingly reach the world in the coming days as more people flow along fragile humanitarian corridors.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday said three such corridors were operating from bombarded areas and, in all, about 35,000 people got out. People left Sumy, in the northeast near the Russian border; the suburbs of Kyiv; and Enerhodar, the southern town where Russian forces took over a large nuclear plant.

“Yes, I saw corpses of civilians,” said Ilya Ivanov, who reached Poland after fleeing a village outside Sumy where Russian forces rolled through. “They shoot at civilians with machine guns.”

More evacuations were announced Thursday as desperate residents sought to leave cities where food, water, medicines and other essentials were running out.

In a staggering measure of displacement, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Thursday said about 2 million people, or “every second person” among the capital’s residents, have left the metro area.

In addition to the growing number of refugees, at least 1 million people have been displaced within Ukraine, International Organization for Migration director general Antonio Vitorino told reporters. The scale of the humanitarian crisis is so extreme that the “worst case scenario” in the IOM’s contingency planning has already been surpassed, he said.

Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking trained psychologists are badly needed, Vitorino said, as more traumatized witnesses join those fleeing.

Nationwide, thousands of people are thought to have been killed across Ukraine, both civilians and soldiers, since Russian forces invaded two weeks ago. City officials in the blockaded port city of Mariupol have said 1,200 residents have been killed there, including three in the bombing of a children’s hospital. In Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, the prosecutor’s office has said 282 residents have been killed, including several children.

The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday it had recorded the killings of 516 civilians in Ukraine in the two weeks since Russia invaded, including 37 children. Most have been caused by “the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area,” it said. It believes the real toll is “considerably higher” and noted that its numbers don’t include some areas of “intense hostilities,” including Mariupol.

Some of the latest refugees have seen those deaths first-hand. Their testimonies will be a critical part of efforts to hold Russia accountable for targeting civilians and civilian structures like hospitals and homes.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor last week launched an investigation that could target senior officials believed responsible for war crimes, after dozens of the court’s member states asked him to act. Evidence collection has begun.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday embraced calls for an international war crimes investigation of Russia, expressing outrage over the bombing of the children’s hospital in Mariupol. “Absolutely there should be an investigation, and we should all be watching,” she said.

Some countries continued to ease measures for refugees. Britain said that from Tuesday, Ukrainians with passports no longer need to travel to a visa application center to provide fingerprints and can instead apply to enter the U.K. online and give fingerprints after arrival. Fewer than 1,000 visas have been granted out of more than 22,000 applications for Ukrainians to join their families there.

Ukrainians who manage to flee fear for those who can’t.

“I am afraid,” said Anna Potapola, a mother of two who arrived in Poland from the city of Dnipro. “When we had to leave Ukraine my children asked me, ‘Will we survive?’ I am very afraid and scared for the people left behind.”

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Associated Press journalists throughout Europe contributed.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Russians pounding Ukraine, but Mariupol’s no Aleppo — yet

By LORNE COOK

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People drive their cars past destroyed buildings in the city of Aleppo, Syria, Aug. 16, 2018. The Russian airstrike on a children’s and maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is the latest in a series of attacks that has gutted apartment blocks and killed people in their homes or simply going about their business. Allegations of war crimes, impossible yet to prove, are mounting and an investigation is underway at the International Criminal Court. Russia’s willingness to use overwhelming force – aerial bombardment and artillery in civilian areas – is already drawing comparisons with its attacks in Chechnya and Syria.

 (AP Photo/Sergei Grits, File)


BRUSSELS (AP) — The Russian airstrike on a children’s and maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is the latest in a series of attacks that have gutted apartment buildings and killed people in their homes or simply going about their business.

Allegations of war crimes, impossible yet to prove, are mounting and an investigation is underway at the International Criminal Court. Russia’s willingness to use overwhelming force — aerial bombardment and artillery in civilian areas — is already drawing comparisons with its attacks in Chechnya and Syria.

But any similarity with the destruction visited on the Chechen capital of Grozny, or Aleppo in northern Syria, is premature, for now. The invasion is only in its third week, and military analysts say that while Russia has expanded its use of airpower, its forces are still not pressing their aerial advantage to the full.

In the wake of Thursday’s airstrike in Mariupol — at least three people, including a child, were killed — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wondered: “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed this as “pathetic shrieks” from the enemy.

It was the shrieks of bombs and shells raining down during two wars from 1994 to 2000 that flattened Grozny. In early December 1999, Russian planes dropped flyers on the Chechen capital with a simple ultimatum to rebel fighters and civilians holed up in the battered city: Leave or be destroyed.

Russian forces had entered the breakaway republic in September that year after Chechen rebel fighters moved into neighboring Dagestan. The militants were also blamed for apartment bombings in Russian cities that left 300 people dead.

Grozny was bombed and shelled for weeks to dislodge entrenched rebels. Moscow’s initial upbeat forecasts of quick victory — echoing its predictions for the rapid surrender of Ukraine — were revised as commanders realized they faced a longer, harsher war.

Airpower was the weapon of choice. The Russian army balked at storming Grozny for fear that street battles would deliver the kind of heavy casualties that its troops suffered in the city in the 1994-96 war.

In January this year, as the Kremlin’s forces closed in on Ukraine’s borders, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the Russian people that invading would be “a painful, violent and bloody business,” with heavy street fighting of the same kind, and that they risk seeing “a new Chechnya.”

Russian airpower also helped President Bashar Assad during Syria’s civil war. It was not gentle to civilians. Hundreds of them were killed in the city of Aleppo.

In 2016, after punishing aerial bombardments by Russian and Syrian planes and years of street fighting, the staggering extent of the damage began to emerge. Tens of thousands of homes left uninhabitable, most factories looted or destroyed, and ancient landmarks reduced to rubble.

Experts said the cost of rebuilding would run into tens of billions of dollars and take years. The city had once been an industrial hub, home to factories producing textiles, plastics and pharmaceuticals. Its ancient center was a World Heritage site that drew hordes of tourists.

Russia is not the only country to use disproportionate force when its military aims are frustrated, with the U.S. facing heavy criticism for indiscriminate attacks in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Aleppo “resembles those cities that were stricken during World War II,” Maamoun Abdul-Karim, head of the government’s museums and archaeology department, said in late 2016. The scale of devastation evoked comparisons to Grozny, or the British World War II firebombing of the German city of Dresden.

The damage inflicted on Aleppo and Grozny by Russian warplanes was relentless; a tactic to avoid being sucked into street fighting and to limit troop casualties. Russia’s war on Ukraine has barely begun. The prospect of close-quarters street fighting, should it come to that, lies ahead.

“This may end up looking like something out of the Middle Ages in terms of cities being besieged and bombarded ... with extraordinary misery, very brutal tactics, indiscriminate shelling by the Russians,” Douglas Lute, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, told the Associated Press.

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Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report from Washington.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war between Russia and Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Opinion: Will the Ukraine war plunge the world economy into a new crisis?

Russia's war against Ukraine is disrupting and likely stifling the world's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. What comes next is unclear, but it's not going to be any better, thinks DW's Henrik Böhme.

Russia's war against Ukraine is changing the post-World War II global order

Crises and wars change much, if not everything. After World War II, a new world order emerged from the ruins, including the creation of the United Nations, in an attempt to never let such a devastating war happen again.

The global financial crisis from 2007 to 2009 caused governments around to the world to put financial markets on a tighter leash, strengthening oversight over banks and their complex products.

The COVID-19 pandemic buried concerns about digitization, as more people have finally come to cherish the advantages of remote working.

But now war has returned to Europe, unleashed by a man who thinks it's his duty to correct what he sees as past political mistakes. He is the president of a country that has all it takes to be an economic superpower: abundant mineral resources, a well-educated population and a rich culture.

Alas, this president has miserably failed to put this wealth to any good uses. The billions of dollars earned by the state from commodity sales haven't been spent on catching up with countries on the edge of technological progress. Instead, the "fat cats" — oligarchs and political elites — have squandered this wealth in a mad global race for the most luxurious yachts, the biggest real estate holdings and the most valuable football club.

Will sanctions hit the right ones?

Now we look on aghast at a war being waged brutally and with no clear idea of who will end it and how — how far is the man in the Kremlin ready to go?

We are also seeing unity among Western countries determined to impose sanctions of the utmost severity. The ruble is plunging, credit ratings have reached junk status and financial investors are leaving the country in droves.

But will these sanctions bring about the desired effects? Are they hitting those pulling the strings? Or is it once again the ordinary people again who are suffering? Those who can no longer buy their Levi's jeans and iPhones, or eat out at their local McDonalds?

DW senior business editor Henrik Böhme

At the same time, countries in western Europe are hurting, too. Strongly addicted to Russian gas and oil, they are concerned about how to shield their industries from the fallout of diminishing fossil fuel supplies. Many Europeans are anxious about the next winter and whether they'll be sitting in cold homes without these fuel supplies. Already, prices at the pump are going through the roof, with the price of oil reaching unprecedented highs.

This might just be the beginning: Nickel, for example, essential for steelmaking and provided to a large extent by Russia, became 50% more expensive virtually overnight. The same goes for palladium, aluminum and inert gases such as neon and xenon — Russia is a major producer of each.

Recipe for a global recession

Meanwhile, we're taking bets when the price of oil will crack the $200-a-barrel mark. But the safer bet is on a return of inflation to economies worldwide. If we're sure of anything, it's that prices won't be going down anytime soon.

All in all, this looks like a perfect storm for the global economy, which appears set on a course into the next economic crisis. 

People stand in line to withdraw money from an ATM of Alfa Bank in Moscow

And all of this in a situation when state coffers have been emptied by a pandemic that swallowed billions in government support. How are we to finance the rescue funds and economic stimulus packages looming around the corner?

In Europe, governments are already hastily cobbling together plans to wean their economies off Russian gas and oil. This is easier said than done and will come at a massive cost. Refilling the continent's gas storage with liquefied natural gas (LNG) rather than Russian gas will increase Europe's energy bill by an estimated €70 billion ($76 billion).

Making do without Russia?

On the other hand, Russia may be thinking twice before shutting off its pipelines to Europe. In February alone, Europeans paid €5.6 billion to the likes of Gazprom and Rosneft who, for example, currently earn between $70 (€64) and $90 for every oil barrel they sell. What usually helps in tight oil markets is pumping more of the crude to drive down prices. 

Even so, it may hurt the man in the Kremlin only so much. He's sitting on a pile of cash and has little debt to pay down. After all, he has a staunch ally backing him up. China is eager to secure raw materials of all kinds and new markets for its own products.

The billion-dollar questions — asked, perhaps, prematurely — are: How can we shape a relationship with Russia in the future? Can there be one?

First and foremost, the war against Ukraine must end. Only then can we think about how to reintegrate Russia into the global economy. Tackling this task could be as difficult as solving humanity's other pressing problems, like fighting climate change. This is only possible with Russia — but a Russia without Putin.  

This opinion piece was adapted from German.

Russia built an economy like a fortress

but the pain is real

By The Associated Press

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Small number of visitors walk inside the GUM department store in Moscow, in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 4, 2022. 

(AP Photo, File)

Western sanctions are dealing a severe blow to Russia’s economy. The ruble is plunging, foreign businesses are fleeing and sharply higher prices are in the offing. Familiar products may disappear from stores, and middle-class achievements like foreign vacations are in doubt.

Beyond the short-term pain, Russia’s economy will likely see a deepening of the stagnation that started to set in long before the invasion of Ukraine.

But a total collapse is unlikely, several economists say. Despite the punishing financial sanctions, Russia has built “an economy that’s geared for conflict,” said Richard Connolly, an expert on the Russian economy at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain.

The Russian government’s extensive involvement in the economy and the money it is still making from oil and gas exports — even with bans from the U.S. and Britain — will help soften the blow for many workers, pensioners and government employees in a country that has endured three serious financial crises in the past three decades. And as economists point out, Iran, a much smaller and less diversified economy, has endured sanctions misery for years over its nuclear program without a complete breakdown.

Still, the Russian currency has fallen spectacularly, which will drive up prices for imported goods when inflation was already running hot at 9%. It took 80 rubles to get one U.S. dollar on Feb. 23, the day before the invasion. By Thursday, it was 119 — even after Russia’s central bank took drastic measures to stop the plunge, including doubling interest rates to 20%.

Marina Albee, owner of the Cafe Botanika vegetarian restaurant in St. Petersburg’s historic city center, has already heard from her fruit and vegetable supplier that prices will be going up 10% to 50%. Other suppliers can’t say how much.

The cafe imports dried seaweed and smoked tofu from Japan, mini asparagus from Chile, broccoli from Benin, basmati rice and coconut oil from India.

“We’re waiting for the tsunami to hit — the tsunami being the price increases for everything we purchase,” Albee said. “We need to keep our eye on the situation and, if we need to, take those dishes out of the menu.”

“We can reengineer our menu to make more Russian-based dishes,” she said. “You have to be quick on your feet.” After surviving two years without tourists because of the COVID-19 pandemic, “it takes a lot to faze us,” Albee added.

Although sanctions have frozen a large portion of Russia’s foreign currency reserves, state finances are in good shape with low debt. When the government does need to borrow, its creditors are mostly domestic banks, not foreign investors who could abandon it in a crisis. The government announced support this week for large companies deemed crucial to the economy.

Estimates of the short-term impact on Russia’s economic growth vary widely because more sanctions could come and the fallout from President Vladimir Putin’s war are uncertain.

“Russians will be a lot poorer — they won’t have cash to holiday in Turkey or send their kids to school in the West — and even then, because of Putin, they will not be welcome,” said Tim Ash, senior emerging market sovereign analyst at BlueBay Asset Management.

He sees economic growth dropping 10%, while other economists see a drop of as little as 2% or something in between.

Long-term prospects for a growing economy are not good — for enduring reasons that predate the war: A few favored insiders control major companies and sectors, resulting in a lack of competition and new investment. Russia has failed to diversify away from its dominant oil and gas sector. Per capita income in 2020 was roughly what it was in 2014.

Foreign investment built up over the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the jobs it brought are heading for the door. Big corporations like Volkswagen, Ikea and Apple have idled plants or halted sales, while energy giants BP, Exxon and Shell have said they will stop buying Russian oil and gas or exit partnerships there.

On Wednesday, ratings agency Fitch cut its credit rating for the country further into junk status and warned of an imminent default on sovereign debt.

The central bank has stepped in to bolster the ruble and the banking system, restrict withdrawals in foreign currency and keep the stock market closed for nearly two weeks. The government also has announced measures to restrict foreign investors from fleeing. While such restrictions shore up the financial system against utter collapse, they also close off the economy to trade and investment that could fuel growth.

Since facing sanctions over its 2014 seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula, the Kremlin has anticipated such measures would be the West’s primary weapon in any conflict. In response, it has devised what Connolly, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and author of a book on Russia’s response to sanctions, calls “the Kalashnikov economy,” a reference to the Russian military rifle.

It’s “a durable, in some ways primitive system,” he said, based on low debt, government control of most of the banking system and a central bank able to intervene and prop up the currency and banks.

While trade will fall and fewer goods will be available, the weaker ruble means the Russian government will earn more of its currency for the oil it sells because oil is priced in dollars. With recently higher prices, Connolly estimates Russia is getting 2.7 times the amount of rubles from oil compared with 2019, money that can cover salaries and pensions.

While U.S. and British officials said they will ban the relatively small amount of oil they import from Russia, Europe, which is much more dependent on Russian energy, has held back.

As it stands, “there’s a lot of holes in this, and the Russians will exploit this and develop a way of carrying on,” Connolly said.

“I’m not saying they’re going to have a wonderful time. I’m saying they have the resources to deal with these problems,” he said.

The long-term impact for Putin’s government in domestic politics is hard to predict. Simon Commander, managing partner at Altura Partners advisory firm and a former World Bank official, says “buoyant popularity for the regime fueled by increased prosperity ... seems unattainable.”

“That may not translate into open dissension, let alone revolt, but it will hardly bolster support for the autocrat,” he said.

Ukraine: As war rages what are the risks at the Chernobyl nuclear plant?

Threat of a nuclear catastrophe is low. But experts fear for safety of workers who have been unable to rotate off shift. Communications with the site are down and electricity has reportedly been lost.

Russian soldiers have taken over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

In late February Russian troops invading Ukraine occupied the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the worst nuclear disaster in history, and took over an exclusion zone that houses decommissioned reactors and radioactive waste facilities.

Since then, the 210 technicians and guards responsible for keeping it safe have not taken a proper break.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations body responsible for nuclear security, says a key pillar of nuclear safety is giving operating staff the capacity to make decisions free of "undue pressure." But overworked staff at Chernobyl are trying to fulfil their duties amid an invasion that has already forced 2 million people to flee.

A combination of factors has increased fears of radioactive leaks from the Chernobyl site. But there is no chance of a nuclear meltdown — the last reactor was closed more than two decades ago. For now, the main concerns are for staff.

"I'm deeply concerned about the difficult and stressful situation facing staff at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the potential risks this entails for nuclear safety," said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi in a press statement Tuesday. "I call on the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there."

The abandoned city of Pripyat near Chernobyl

Communications and power failures

Compounding the concerns are problems with communications and electricity.

On Tuesday, the IAEA said data transmission from monitoring systems installed at Chernobyl had been lost and Ukraine's regulatory authority could only communicate with the plant via email. State-run nuclear energy company Ukrenergo reported Wednesday that a high-voltage electricity line connecting Kyiv and Chernobyl had been disconnected. That has forced workers to rely on diesel generators for electricity and there are concerns it could disrupt the cooling pumps for spent fuel.

Radioactive fuel rods continue to heat up after they have been taken out of reactors and need to be chilled in water for years before they can be moved to dry storage facilities. More than 20,000 spent fuel rods are sitting in wet and dry storage facilities at the site.

A massive steel and concrete structure contains nuclear reactor 4 at the Chernobyl power plant

If the cooling pools were to dry out, the radiation could hurt workers. But experts said a large release of radiation akin to the 1986 disaster is unlikely and would not "have consequences outside the plant site."

"It is also important to note that drying out of the ponds will not cause a nuclear reaction or explosion to occur," said Mark Foreman, associate professor of nuclear chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, in a statement.

A report from the Ukrainian state regulator in 2011 stress-tested different scenarios that could lead to failure. It found that if electricity were cut, the loss of the pool water cooling function would raise temperatures — but not by enough to cause an accident.

In a tweet on Wednesday, the IAEA confirmed the heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and the volume of cooling water was enough to effectively remove heat without the need for electricity.

"The spent fuel there is so old that evaporation will not likely be the problem," said Jan Haverkamp, a nuclear expert at environmental campaign group Greenpeace. Still, he added, "an explosion hitting the pool could cause overheating."

The loss of electricity could also hit the ventilation system and make it harder to manage radioactive dust.

"It may become much harder for workers to enter some parts of the site without full protective clothing," said Foreman. "They may also have greater difficulty in changing in and out of their protective clothing. Some parts of the site might become off limits to the workers until the power is restored."

Nuclear safety

Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to fully invade Ukraine in February has thrown the security of nuclear power into the spotlight.

"If there is a nuclear accident the cause will not be a tsunami brought on by mother nature," said Grossi on Monday, referring to the earthquake that flooded the reactor of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011. "Instead, it will be the result of human failure to act when we knew we could."

Chernobyl is a powerful symbol of nuclear catastrophe. In 1986, a sudden surge of power during a reactor test destroyed Unit 4 of the poorly designed nuclear power station, in what was then part of the Soviet Union. The fire that followed released clouds of radioactive material into the environment that led to authorities setting up an exclusion zone and evacuating hundreds of thousands of people. Dozens are thought to have died as a direct result of the disaster.

Radiation levels have since fallen. Some residents of the exclusion zone have returned to their homes and live in areas with levels that are above average but not fatal. Radiation unexpectedly spiked in February when Russian troops entered the area, possibly because of heavy vehicles raising a layer of topsoil and kicking dust up into the air.

The IAEA found the levels pose no danger to the public. But the unprecedented reality of war in a country operating nuclear power stations has raised the specter of nuclear catastrophe.

The Russian army shelled Europe's largest nuclear power plant last week before taking over the site. Though there was no safety incident, it was the first time that military explosives have hit an operating nuclear facility.

"We've entered something that that the industry was in complete denial of," said Haverkamp. "Nuclear power is just not an energy source that belongs in a war situation."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins 

IAEA: Ukraine has lost communications

with Chernobyl nuclear plant

Ukrenergo, Ukraine's national electricity operator, said that the plant remains disconnected from the national power grid and will stay that way until Russian forces allow safe passage for repair workers. 

File Photo by Sergey Starostenko/UPI | License Photo

March 10 (UPI) -- Ukraine has lost all communications with the Chernobyl nuclear power station, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said Thursday, a day after heavy Russian shelling cut all external power to the plant.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the site had been able to communicate with the site by email and before it lost the ability to do so the regulator said the plant's power lines had been damaged in shelling from the day before, disconnecting it from the power grid.

However, there have since been reports that power has been restored at the site but IAEA said it was looking for confirmation.

State-run power company Ukrenergo has not commented on the reports but said earlier Thursday that the plant is running on emergency diesel generators, but the fuel is limited. Chernobyl's cooling, ventilation and fire-extinguishing systems -- all vital in the running of the nuclear power plant safely -- are powered by the damaged line.

RELATED Officials fear possible radiation leak after Chernobyl nuclear plant loses power in Ukraine

The regulator told IAEA that the generators hold a two-day supply of fuel and were powering systems important to safety, including those for spent nuclear fuel as well as water control and chemical water treatment.

Grossi said that in order to maintain power at the site either the lines need to be repaired or supplies of diesel be delivered to refuel the generates.

The IAEA assured that the plant being disconnected from the grid "will not have a critical impact on essential safety functions at the site" with the regulator also informing the watchdog that if the generators die and the power is not restored the safety systems would continue to be in place.

RELATED IAEA loses contact with safeguards monitoring systems at Chernobyl nuclear plant

If all emergency power was lost, the regulator said it would be able to monitor the spent fuel pool but under worsening radiation safety conditions due to a lack of ventilation at the facility.

The volume of cooling water used to remove heat from spent nuclear fuel was "sufficient" despite being without electricity and the systems and structures for the pool were not damaged in the attack, the IAEA said.

Heavy Russian shelling damaged the high-voltage power lines to the plant on Wednesday, and crews have not yet been able to repair it due to sustained Russian assaults in the area.

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Ukrenergo said that the plant remains disconnected from the national power grid and will stay that way until Russian forces allow safe passage for repair workers.

Ukrainian officials said it has declined an offer from Belarus, a chief Russian ally in the war in Ukraine, of helping to restore power to the station.

"Ukrenergo does not need the assistance of the Belarusian side in repairing the high-voltage line, damaged by the Russian shelling, that fed Chernobyl nuclear power plant," the state-run power company said Thursday in a translated message on Facebook.

Soviet workers in protective gear take radiation measurements in the area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which is in present-day Ukraine, after the explosion on April 26, 1986. 

UPI Photo/File/INS

"We need a cease-fire and the admission of our repair teams, who have been waiting for an agreement to leave for repairs since [Wednesday].

"We are ready to immediately repair the lines and restore power to Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which has been without electricity for more than a day. Just stop the shelling and let our teams do their job."

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has called for a safe corridor to allow utility workers to enter the area and make the repairs.

"We demand that a repair team immediately be allowed access to get rid of the damage," Vereshchuk said, according to The Washington Post. "We ask the global community to focus its attention on this problem."

Russian forces seized control of the Chernobyl plant immediately after launching its invasion on Feb. 24. And the workers at the site have not been able to rotate since, with Grossi having repeatedly warned that this is compromising "a vital safety pillar."

Located about 70 miles northwest of Kyiv, the plant was the site of one of the world's worst nuclear accidents in 1986 when a reactor exploded and sent radiation across Europe.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CHERNOBYL 

Ukraine-Russia conflict has German teens terrified

War in Europe has become a reality for the first time in decades. German teens are concerned that Russia's aggression will spread beyond Ukraine.


Teenagers in Germany worry that war will spread beyond Ukraine

"I'm scared that there will be a nuclear war," said Henry, 13 in the town of Sarstedt in northern Germany.

He is not alone. Young Germans are increasingly worried about the war in Ukraine, specifically the idea that the conflict may spill into other countries, or that Russia might make use of its nuclear weapons. This is according to a survey of 206 13- to 17-year-olds polled on March 2 and 3 by theInternational Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI) in Munich, a think-tank funded by Bavarian public broadcaster BR.

"Nine out of ten teens are anxious and worried about the situation in Ukraine," the study found.

They have two specific concerns: First "that other countries will be attacked because one country is not enough for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin." This could specifically be a NATO or EU nation like Poland, thus bringing about "World War III."And secondly: "Russia will threaten us with nuclear bombs" and the German authorities wouldnˈt be able to warn people about an imminent attack in time to reach safety.

'Where should I flee to?'

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made young Europeans think what only three weeks ago was unthinkable: that war could come to the European Union.

"The possibility of World War III, or even worse, nuclear war, terrifies me and many of my friends," said Gül, 17, who lives in Rheinfelden, near Germany's border with Switzerland. "My parents came to Germany from Turkey in search of a better life. And now I ask myself what we will do if there really is a world war. Where should I flee to? What will my life look like? Will I even get out of this country alive?"


Half of all refugees from Ukraine are children

German teenagers were born after the wars in the Balkans that saw NATO involvement and German participation in the late 1990s. Fears of Russian aggression are even more a thing of the past — not only for the youngest in society.

"For my parentsˈ generation, growing up during the Cold War, nuclear conflict felt like a real possibility," said Julia, a 35-year-old high school teacher in southern Germany.

"And even after the fall of the Soviet Union, they continued to be skeptical of Russia and didn't see it as changing very much. They say they feel prepared for this moment, though the large scope of the attack surprised them. But for my generation and the generation I teach, war, especially nuclear war, in Europe felt like the most remote thing imaginable … until three weeks ago."

German TikTok and Instagram are flooded with videos about how to prepare emergency rations, as well as speculation on how likely an attack on Germany may be. They are attracting hundreds of thousands of likes.

Google searches for potassium iodide tablets, which help prevent radiation poisoning, have skyrocketed across Germany following reports of an attack on Ukraine's largest nuclear power station.

Depressing and difficult

"It is difficult listening to the news because what is happening right now in Ukraine is scary, even for us German teens," said Erin, 17, in Frankfurt.

"It is depressing because we have sympathy with the teenagers in Ukraine. Seeing daughters and fathers having to say goodbye and not knowing when they will see each other again is very hard for me," she said. She added that the subject was barely discussed in school, but she was divided on whether or not it should be, since the topic weighed so heavily on her.

The IZI study found that despite what adults might assume, most German teens were still getting the bulk of their information about the war from their parents, public television, and the website of mainstream news services — sources they considered more likely to be accurate.

13-year-old Henry said that he was "worried about the people in Ukraine" and that students in his class quickly began collecting donations for refugees.

According to IZI, after news on the ground, the thing teens most wanted most was to know how to assist people their own age who had to flee their homes.

Not only was social media filled with "how you can help" posts, but interest groups like sports clubs and the environmentalist movement Fridays for Future have temporarily shifted focus to collecting donations and organizing solidarity marches in support of Ukraine.

Sociologist Klaus Hurrelmann with the Hertie School in Berlin believes this might turn out to be part of a real shift in young Germans' priorities: "Fear of war could replace concerns about climate and the environment, which have always been ahead in surveys over the past ten years," he told the daily Die Welt.

IZI study leader Maya Göth calls on parents and teachers to allow teens to "express their thoughts and concerns," in a constructive way, instead of downplaying them.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

WAIT, WHAT
Belarus classifies Deutsche Welle as 'extremist'

Belarus has classified all content put out by Deutsche Welle as "extremist." DW Director General Peter Limbourg has criticized the use of "cheap tricks," seeing them as evidence of growing nervousness in Minsk.


DW is not the only media outlet to be targeted by the authorities in Belarus

DW Director General Peter Limbourg has accused Belarus of using tricks to take action against those who want to form an independent opinion, after Belarus' interior ministry classified all DW material as extremist.

Limbourg denounced the decision, which categorizes all DW products and even its logo as extremist. "The blocking of our websites in Belarus in October 2021 was already an unbelievable encroachment on press freedom. The recent announcement of the criminalization of the DW logo proves how nervous the regime there is," he said in a statement.

It goes on to say: "DW is still informing many people in Belarus via tools for bypassing censors. Especially following the attack on Ukraine, the numbers have significantly increased. Now they want to use cheap tricks to create pseudo-legal grounds to take action against people who make use of their right to free speech."

DW Director General Peter Limbourg has condemned the decision by authorities in Belarus

'Extremist products' of DW

On March 9, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus released a statement, saying: "The Minsk Central District Court, based on material from the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, has classified the information products of the Telegram channel and the DW Belarus chat as extremist material."

It also makes clear that Deutsche Welle's entire media and information network, as well as its logo in the form of the two letters D and W, are now considered extremist in Belarus.

DW is not the first media outlet to receive this classification. By now, most independent Belarusian media outlets are considered "extremist," including the portals Zerkalo.io, Euroradio, Radio Liberty and the newspaper Nasha Niva. DW's website has been blocked in Belarus since October 2021. The Belarusian authorities warn that people could be fined and imprisoned for up to 15 days for saving or disseminating "extremist material."

Subscribing to the Telegram channel is not in itself explicitly classified as dissemination. Nevertheless, there are people who have already received heavy fines just for having subscriptions to "extremist channels" in Belarus.

After fleeing Ukraine, South African students arrive home

MOGOMOTSI MAGOME and SEBABATSO MOSAMO

Thu, March 10, 2022

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Ten South African students who fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion of that country have arrived home Thursday, with 25 more expected over the next few days.

Welcomed by cheering family and friends at O.R Tambo International Airport, the students are among more than 80,000 foreign nationals who have left Ukraine since the Russian invasion, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Returning student Butlhari Mtonga said she's happy to be safely home but she's still worried about those who remain in Ukraine.

“How can South Africa help Ukraine at this moment of crisis? How do we help the people? Because people are being killed," she said. "I know people who have been killed, people are targeted. It is a very serious situation. How can we help bring peace in that land?”

Mtonga said she didn't want to talk about her own experience. "I want to talk about helping South Africa help Ukrainians,” she said.

The South African students were on a repatriation flight organized by the South African government with assistance from the private company, Aspen Pharmacare.

One of the government's first priorities will be to assist students who have been disturbed by their experience in Ukraine, International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said.

“It has been a traumatic experience," Monyela said. "That’s why one of the issues and conversations we are currently having now is to attend to the mental health issues, working with partners and departments like social development.”

As relieved families welcomed the returning students, South Africa's government said it deplores the violence in Ukraine, even though it abstained from voting on a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We are against conflicts that lead to the loss of life, it is even more disturbing when it costs the lives of children," South African minister in the presidency, Mondli Gungubele said in a press briefing Thursday. “We are against the killing of people for whatever reason. We have always believed in negotiated and peaceful resolutions, so we cannot be comfortable about the bombing of children.”

For Russians in Ukraine, their homeland feels like the enemy

"It would be convenient to say that only Putin is guilty -- that's not true," said Sidorkin. "We have to dismantle this imperial myth of Russia altogether."

Russian citizen Sasha Alekseyeva feels safer living in Ukraine than she does under 'authoritarian' in Russia

 (AFP/Ionut IORDACHESCU) (Ionut IORDACHESCU)

Ania TSOUKANOVA with Dave CLARK in Kyiv
Fri, March 11, 2022

The Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine is a personal tragedy for Russians living in Ukraine, many of whom now see their homeland as an enemy -- and some are ready to fight.

Despite Ukrainian fury and mounting anti-Russian rhetoric, 40-year-old Andrei Sidorkin says the only time he has been rejected by his neighbours is when he tried to join the army.

Sidorkin, who was born in St Petersburg where his parents are buried, moved to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv 15 years ago "for a love story".

He had felt accepted in Ukraine but his Russian passport meant he was blocked on five attempts to join different elements of the Ukrainian armed forces, including the nationalist Azov Battalion.


"If Russian troops ever enter Kyiv, I would like to welcome them with weapons in hand, not empty-handed," Sidorkin said.

He is preparing Molotov cocktails with other volunteers, he added.

As a former Soviet republic where Russian is still widely spoken, and which has seen two democratic revolutions in 2004 and 2014, Ukraine has become a popular exile destination for Russian liberals.

Sasha Alekseyeva, a 32-year-old sociologist with multicoloured dreadlocks, moved from St Petersburg to Kyiv four years ago to escape what she saw as the authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin.

With Russian forces pressing towards the capital, she has now fled to the relative safety of Lviv in western Ukraine.

"I feel safer here than in Russia."

- 'Ashamed' -

There were nearly 175,000 Russians with a residence permit in Ukraine as of late January, the state migration service told AFP, with many more likely living illegally since there is no visa regime between the two countries.

The invasion has caught many of them off-guard, with some finding themselves torn between their homeland and their adopted country.

It is a potentially dangerous situation since a portion of Ukraine's 40 million inhabitants now consider every Russian an enemy.

"I was very ashamed to be Russian," said Galina Zhabina, who spent several days under bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city in the east.

"Then I was very angry, ready to throw myself on a tank with my bare hands, but there were no tanks, just airstrikes," the 36-year-old copywriter said.

Maria Troushnikova, a 43-year-old English teacher who has lived in Ukraine for 20 years but has always felt Russian, says she is experiencing an identity crisis.

"Shame, rage, pride for Ukraine -- there is all of that in me," she told AFP, describing "a terrible emptiness instead of nationality".

For many, the war has broken relationships with relatives in Russia who support the invasion or are unwilling to condemn Moscow.

"I hardly talk to anyone anymore," said Zhabina.

"My friends hide their heads in the sand, my family invites me to go back to Russia and they don't understand why I don't."

- The enemy within? -

Of her family, Alekseyeva only communicates with her 88-year-old grandmother. It saddens her to think that she may never see her again.

"But when you hear that an 18-month-old child has been killed, you don't think about your grandmother anymore," she said.

Yulia Kutsenko, founder of a kindergarten in Kyiv, says her mother and sisters in Moscow support Ukraine but she finds it hard to understand their inaction, even though any protest is brutally suppressed by the Russian authorities.

"I am very afraid for them, but I would still like them to go out on the streets," said the 44-year-old.

She now feels entirely Ukrainian and considers Russia "an enemy".

Some hope that a defeat of their homeland will serve as a useful lesson, or even lead to Russia's disintegration.

"It would be convenient to say that only Putin is guilty -- that's not true," said Sidorkin.

"We have to dismantle this imperial myth of Russia altogether."

ant-dc/er

Ukraine Paralympic athletes to help war-torn homeland

Lisa MARTIN
Fri, 11 March 2022, 

The Ukraine team raise their fists at the Beijing Paralympics 

(AFP/Thomas LOVELOCK)


Biathlon gold medallist Liudmyla Liashenko's Kharkiv home was

 bombed while she was at the Paralympics 

(AFP/Mohd RASFAN)

Despite reeling from the events back home, Ukraine's Paralympic

 athletes have managed 25 podium finishes

 (AFP/Mohd Rasfan)



France’s Benjamin Daviet (L) hugs Ukraine’s Grygorii Vovchynskyi (R)

 after the men’s cross-country sprint free-standing final 

(AFP/LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA)

There will be no welcome parade when Ukraine's most successful Winter Paralympics team returns to its war-torn homeland from Beijing -- some members may not even be able to reach their bombed cities.

But after persevering on the slopes and field, the athletes are now vowing to bolster their country's fight for survival with donations, volunteer work and helping loved ones.

The United Nations estimates more than 2.3 million people have fled Ukraine -- the majority to neighbouring Poland -- since Russia invaded more than two weeks ago.

Despite reeling from events back home, Ukraine's Paralympic athletes managed 25 podium finishes in biathlon and cross-country skiing events, including a team record of nine gold, as of Friday afternoon.

They could add to the tally this weekend in cross-country skiing and relay events.

Previously, the country's seven gold at the 2006 Turin Games had been its most successful Winter Paralympic outing.

But while other competitors will head home with sights set on training for the 2026 Games, the Ukrainian athletes face life in a warzone.

Nine members of the team, including the head coach, are from heavily bombed Kharkiv -- and it could be too dangerous to return to that city.

Biathlon gold medallist Liudmyla Liashenko's Kharkiv home was bombed earlier this week.

After the closing ceremony on Sunday in Beijing, the team will fly to Istanbul and then have a few days rest in Warsaw before travelling by bus to Ukraine.

- No place like home -

Biathlete Pavlo Bal, 35 -- a former airborne soldier who had his legs amputated after an injury in 2017 -- knows it will be a long and tough fight ahead for his country.

"I will be a blood donor and help internally displaced people," he told AFP through an interpreter.

"Maybe I will help with logistics."

His wife and two-year-old son are safe with his brother in a village and although he keeps in touch with frequent video calls he wants to see them in person.

"I cannot wait to get back home and hug my family. I'm looking forward to that the most," he said.

A Ukrainian poem that his mother taught him -- about home being the best place -- has brought him solace while competing in China, he said.

While Bal plans to take up hand-cycling have been disrupted by the conflict, he still hopes to make it to the next Winter Paralympics.

- Family reunion -

Teammate Grygorii Vovchynskyi, 33, is desperate to be reunited with his 10-year-old daughter, who is staying in a village with his parents.

"I tell her that I love her every day," he said.

Vovchynskyi won gold, silver and bronze in his men's standing biathlon races and a bronze in a cross-country event and aims to lift the spirits of family and friends.

"Those who are sheltering underground, those who are under fire and those who are so afraid when they hear the sirens and run to the basements, I want to tell them that this hour is not for you. This is not your story and this is not how it will end," he said.

He plans to donate clothes and give shelter to people escaping the fighting.

"The main task will be to do what I can to help Ukraine. I want to help my friends who are in the cities where there is a lot of fighting, in places where there is a need for humanitarian aid," he said.

The Ukraine team's grit has won plaudits from fellow athletes and games organisers.

International Paralympic Committee President Andrew Parsons said the team's journey was an extraordinary sports story.

"The fact they are competing here, knowing what is going on in their nation, and are still focused on competition -- it's incredible," he said.

There were always examples of resilience at any Paralympic Games -- but this was next level, Parsons added

"This is beyond what I thought was possible," he said.

lpm/lb

Ukraine team equals best ever Winter Paralympics performance

Ukraine's Liudmyla Liashenko celebrates after winning the women's individual standing para biathlon final event on Mar 11, 2022.

 (Photo: AFP/Mohd RASFAN)

11 Mar 2022 

ZHANGJIAKOU: Days after learning her Kharkiv home was bombed, Ukrainian athlete Liudmyla Liashenko steeled herself on Friday (Mar 11) for a gold medal performance on day seven of Beijing's Winter Paralympics.

Her success was one of six biathlon podium finishes on the day for the Ukraine team, which is reeling from the trauma of Russia's invasion of the Eastern European nation more than two weeks ago.

"I dedicate this medal to the Ukrainians, to the army who protect us and to my family," Liashenko, 28, said.

It was a hat trick of gold on Friday for Ukraine, with Oleksandr Kazik and Oksana Shyshkova's also victorious in their visually impaired events.

Shyshkova has bagged five medals at the games - three gold and two silvers across biathlon and cross country skiing events.

"We (want to) protect the honour of our country," she said.

"That is maybe what is motivating us to focus and do all the best that we can during the race. Maybe that is the secret."

The United Nations estimates that 2.5 million people have fled Ukraine, the majority to neighbouring Poland.

Related:


Ukraine athletes appeal for peace with banner at Beijing Games

'It's a miracle we're here': Ukraine team arrive in Beijing

Despite grappling with immense uncertainty and fears for the safety and welfare of loved ones back home, as of Friday afternoon the Ukraine team had equalled their previous best-ever Winter Paralympic performance.

They are second on the overall medal tally, behind China, with a 25 medal haul including a record nine gold.

The country's 25 medals and seven gold haul in Turin at the 2006 games had been its most successful Winter Paralympic outing until now.

Team veteran Vitalii Lukianenko, was unable to win his third gold for the week, placing second to Kazik, 25, in the men's visually impaired biathlon on Friday.

"At my age, 44 years old, even bronze is a gold medal," he joked.

For Kazik, the success was a confidence boost and he said it was humbling to beat his legendary teammate.

"Vitalii is a great athlete and at every Paralympic Games he is one of the leaders," he said.

In Yanqing, there were three Austrian sisters on the podium in the women's visually impaired giant slalom alpine skiing event.

Veronika Aigner, 19, achieved a Paralympic title guided by her sister Elisabeth, 23, while younger sister Barbara, 16, claimed bronze.

"We are so happy that I and my sisters are on the podium. It's crazy," Veronika said.

Their brother Johannes, 16, has also won four medals at the games including two gold. The three siblings have the same congenital cataract condition as their mother.

At the para-snowboarding, China's Wu Zhongwei, 26, outclassed the competition in the LL1 banked slalom category and Sun Qi, 22, won the LL2 race, with the host nation also picking up two silvers and two bronze medals in the women's event and men's category for upper limb impairments.

American Brenna Huckaby won the women's para-snowboarding banked slalom while France's Maxime Montaggioni triumphed in the men's UL race.

Meanwhile, a bronze medal is up for grabs in the wheelchair curling later Friday night when Slovakia plays Canada.

Reigning champs China will face Sweden in the gold medal match on Saturday.

Source: AFP/mi