World
Russian occupiers rule Ukraine’s nuclear plant through force, fear: Sources
On the eighth day of Russia’s war in Ukraine, March 3, 2022, for the first time in history, an operating nuclear station was taken over militarily.
“We couldn’t believe it,” an engineer who worked at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant told Al Jazeera.
“We completely denied it, one can’t just seize a nuclear station, it’s the safest place on the planet.”
On that fateful Friday, sirens that sounded like wounded animals wailed endlessly, and shells flew in the night sky.
During Moscow’s efforts to seize the power station, which once produced a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity, two Russian tanks barraged the station’s walls with bloodcurdling thuds.
Ukrainian security staffers yelled into a bullhorn for hours to “stop bombing a nuclear site”.
A fire erupted at a station’s training centre and dark plumes of smoke blanketed the forest around the company town, Enerhodar.
Horrified residents began building barricades and blocking entrances into their apartment buildings as armed fighters ran around the town of about 51,000 people.
For this story, Al Jazeera interviewed two engineers and another resident who have since fled Enerhodar but regularly keep in touch with old neighbours and colleagues there.
Amid the takeover, luckily, reactors and spent fuel storage were not hit and radiation levels didn’t spike because Russian “experts consulted these a******s on where they can shoot and where they can’t,” one of the engineers said, referring to pro-Russia Ukrainians.
The worst he and his colleagues feared was a replay of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Encased in protective zirconium, uranium fuel heats the reactor and a water coolant that turns into steam, rotating turbines and generating electricity.
But the casing can melt at a high temperature and start a “para-zirconium reaction” that turns each gram of water into several cubic metres of highly flammable hydrogen.
“Once it has begun, you can’t stop in, it will keep heating up, will heat up itself until everything is blown to freaking pieces,” one of the engineers said.
Thousands have since left Enerhodar.
Al Jazeera reported on Wednesday on the feared Chechen unit which polices the occupied Ukrainian nuclear town.
The technicians that signed up to work under Russian occupiers were well rewarded, one of the engineers said, claiming those who remained received two salaries in two currencies – for doing one job for a period.
The occupiers paid workers in the Russian rouble, while they still received the hryvnia from Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom – until it found out about their “volunteer collaboration”, fired them, and stopped transferring wages.
“They felt just like sheikhs,” one of the engineers said.
“All the ladies started getting beauty injections, or doing things they could spend a lot of money on, something you could buy right now.”
The words seem more apt to depict a boomtown amid a gold rush and seem light years away from the realities of the Russian-Ukrainian war – and especially the life in the potential epicentre of a nuclear disaster.
‘The main danger will be new Russian attacks’
In the days and weeks that followed the takeover, Moscow deployed hundreds of servicemen and Chechen national guardsmen to the station.
They arrived with multiple rocket launchers, armoured vehicles, landmines and other weaponry often placed between the station’s blocks or in Soviet-era bunkers.
The Russians shelled Kyiv-controlled areas with impunity knowing Ukrainian forces wouldn’t hit back.
Moscow’s troops wanted to redirect the flow of electricity from Europe’s largest nuclear station to energy-starved Crimea.
But their attempts failed because of damage to high-voltage lines and a Crimean electrical substation, and the complexity of synchronising the station’s output with the Russian power grid.
Because of safety concerns, all of the station’s six reactors have been shut down amid the war.
Most Ukrainians nationwide live in apartments with central heating systems, but as Moscow launched hundreds of cruise missiles and drones this past winter on critical infrastructure, they were deprived of heat, power and water.
The power deficit that led to blackouts and rationing has gradually been compensated by bolstered operations at three other nuclear power stations – and a twofold drop in Ukraine’s industrial production, Oksana Ishchuk, executive director of the Center for Global Studies Strategy XXI, a think tank in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.
In the coming winter season, when central heating will be badly needed, Ukraine will make do without the power generated by the Zaporizhzhia station, she said, but warned that “the main danger will be new Russian attacks on critical energy infrastructure facilities”.
Money and ‘heroism’
Even though the Zaporizhzhia station does not generate electricity, thousands of staffers are still needed there to monitor its infrastructure and the constant cooling of the reactors.
Aided by Russian servicemen and intelligence officers, Enerhodar’s Moscow-installed “administration” tried sticks and carrots to keep 11,000 Ukrainian staffers at work.
The stick involved abduction, detention and torture, according to Ukrainian officials and employees of the plant.
Even so, “Ukrainians at the power station act with dignity and refuse to cooperate,” Energoatom, a state-run conglomerate in charge of Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants, said in May.
Some workers disappeared without a trace as unmarked graves began dotting the forest.
Hundreds more allegedly spent days, weeks or months in overcrowded cells, sleeping in shifts.
Sometimes, a detainee agreed to falsely “confess” in “directing Ukrainian artillery fire” or “spying” in return for freedom and “clemency”, one of the engineers said.
“You memorise the text, then say it on camera. They release you … Then they publish [a story in pro-Kremlin media outlets] that you are so horrible, but they’re so generous.”
Several, however, agreed to cooperate, because of the carrot – hefty salaries.
Some justified staying by claiming they were “responsible for nuclear safety” one of the engineers said ironically, “that while they’re there, they won’t allow any lawlessness to happen, that they stayed on like heroes”.
And then, there are the pro-Russian Ukrainians.
The older ones feel nostalgic about their Soviet-era youth, others support the Kremlin’s narrative and hold Kyiv responsible for instigating the war.
But their alleged “collaboration” goes beyond simply acceptance of Moscow’s viewpoint.
“They snitch on pro-Ukrainian neighbours, report those who left [the occupied areas] so that Russians can rob their apartments or move in there,” a fugitive Enerhodar resident whose pro-Russian parents stayed behind, told Al Jazeera.
Some 3,500 staffers, or about one in three, are understood to have signed contracts with the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom.
‘A gift of energy’
Enerhodar, whose name means “a gift of energy,” used to be one of Ukraine’s most affluent towns.
Residents had access to quality healthcare, enjoyed discounted trips to the seaside, attended theatre festivals and music shows, and sent their children to sports schools, including a boxing school that produced several national champions.
The bravest ones even enjoyed year-round swimming in two ponds whose water cooled the reactors and never froze in winter.
The ponds were home to tilapia and Asian catfish introduced for “sanitary purposes” – to eat algae and secure the cleanliness of turbines.
The staffers’ incentives were not just monetary.
The importance of nuclear generation rose after the 2014 separatist uprising in the Donbas that largely deprived Ukraine of access to coal for thermal stations.
Two years ago, the station’s reactors were retrofitted and modernised, and churned out electricity at maximum capacity.
“There was plenty of work, but we understood how important it all was,” one of the engineers said.
After the Russian takeover, the town deteriorated.
Residents spent hours in bread lines amid food shortages.
A couple of months later, Moscow-appointed authorities began shipping substandard, pricier foodstuffs from Crimea.
Local entrepreneurs also bootlegged and sold it – along with cigarettes, alcohol and medical drugs – from the boots of their cars.
However, the station’s staffers who agreed to work with Rosatom had plenty of money – especially the older, retired ones who collected pensions and salaries from Kyiv and Moscow while continuing to work.
Russian servicemen and separatists from Donbas allegedly drank too much, and the Moscow-installed “authorities” banned the sale of alcohol, a step that triggered the production of homemade moonshine.
The new lifestyle felt like a throwback to the early 1990s when the newly independent Ukraine adapted to a market economy.
Economically, the situation was even worse than the gradual separation of the rebel-controlled “People’s Republics” in the Donbas.
“The turnover of goods and money is being reoriented towards Russia as there is no communication with Ukraine-controlled areas,” Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera.
The occupation even led to small environmental disasters.
Because the now shut-down reactors no longer produce warm water, the tilapia and Asian catfish in the cooling ponds died and washed ashore.
Then some of the bored occupants began racing their cars on the artificial hills made of soot and other waste from Enerhodar’s thermal power station.
The races cause highly toxic dust to rise and pollute the air, Enerhodar’s exiled Mayor Dmytro Orlov said in mid-July.
A narrow escape
As fighting intensifies, leaving Enerhodar for Kyiv-controlled areas has become next to impossible.
Russian forces have been accused of shelling cars with civilians, blaming their deaths on Ukraine, and supplying lists of the most essential staffers to checkpoints.
Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify these claims. Throughout the war, Moscow has denied targeting civilians.
“The departure is maximally complicated and sometimes it’s simply impossible to leave the occupied areas, especially without money,” one of the engineers said.
He managed to leave by the narrowest of margins.
The man and his family drove via Russia-occupied areas, including the nearly destroyed city of Mariupol, which resembled “pure hell”.
“People sit and drink coffee, the sign [on the building’s] first floor says, ‘a lounge cafeteria,’ but the rest of the building is black, and there are no more floors left,” he said describing a drive through downtown Mariupol.
They entered the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don one day before the Wagner mercenary company briefly seized it on May 23.
Then they drove north and west to enter the European Union after an exhausting, hours-long interrogation by Russian intelligence officers, and finally crossed back into Ukraine.
Still on Energoatom’s payroll, the engineer is settling in Kyiv but is ready to leave for Enerhodar once the Russians are pushed out or retreat the way they had left several occupied areas last year.
He compares his rapid-response crew to paratroopers that must move fast to retake the station and prevent a disaster.
“The situation will be critical,” he said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As cataclysmic wildfires rage across Los Angeles, President-elect Donald Trump hasn’t been offering much sympathy. Instead, he’s claiming he could do a better job managing the crisis, spewing falsehoods and casting blame on the state’s Democratic governor.
Trump has lashed out at his longtime political foe Gov. Gavin Newsom’s forest management policies and falsely claimed the state’s fish conservation efforts are responsible for fire hydrants running dry in urban areas. Referring to the governor by a derisive nickname, Trump said he should resign.
Meanwhile, more than 180,000 people have been under evacuation orders and the fires have consumed more than 45 square miles (116 square kilometers). One that destroyed the neighborhood of Pacific Palisades became the most destructive blaze in Los Angeles history.
Trump v. Newsom: Round 2 was to be expected — the liberal Democrat has long been one of Trump’s biggest foils. But the Western fires are also a sign of something far more grave than a political spat or a fight over fish. Wildfire season is growing ever longer thanks to increasing drought and heat brought on by climate change.
Trump refuses to recognize the environmental dangers, instead blaming increasing natural disasters on his political opponents or on acts of God. He has promised to drill for more oil and cut back on renewable energy.
On Thursday, Trump said on social media that Newsom should “open up the water main” — an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem. “NO MORE EXCUSES FROM THIS INCOMPETENT GOVERNOR,” Trump said, adding, “IT’S ALREADY FAR TOO LATE!”
Standing on the street in a scorched subdivision as a home behind him was engulfed in flames, Newsom responded to the criticism when asked about it by CNN.
“People are literally fleeing. People have lost their lives. Kids lost their schools. Families completely torn asunder. Churches burned down, and this guy wants to politicize it,” Newsom said. “I have a lot of thoughts and I know what I want to say, but I won’t.”
In a post on his Truth Social media network, Trump tried to connect dry hydrants to criticism of the state’s approach to balancing the distribution of water to farms and cities with the need to protect endangered species including the Delta smelt. Trump has sided with farmers over environmentalists in a long-running dispute over California’s scarce water resources. But that debate has nothing to do with the hydrant issue in Los Angeles, driven by an intense demand on a municipal system not designed to battle such blazes.
About 40% of Los Angeles city water comes from state-controlled projects connected to northern California and the state has limited the water it delivers this year. But the southern California reservoirs these canals help feed are at above-average levels for this time of year.
Roughly 20% of hydrants across the city went dry as crews battled blazes, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said. Firefighters in Southern California are accustomed to dealing with the strong Santa Ana winds that blow in the fall and winter, but the hurricane-force gusts earlier in the week took them by surprise. The winds grounded firefighting aircraft that should have been making critical water drops, straining the hydrant system.
“This is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 25 years on the fire department,” Los Angeles Fire Capt. Adam VanGerpen told CBS This Morning.
Janisse Quiñones, head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the ferocity of the fire made the demand for water four times greater than “we’ve ever seen in the system.”
Hydrants are designed for fighting fires at one or two houses at a time, not hundreds, Quiñones said, and refilling the tanks also requires asking fire departments to pause firefighting efforts.
President Joe Biden, who was in California for an environmental event that ended up being canceled as the fires raged, appeared with Newsom at a Santa Monica firehouse on Wednesday and quickly issued a major disaster declaration for California, releasing some immediate federal funds.
But any additional federal response will be overseen by Trump, who has a history of withholding or delaying federal aid to punish his political enemies.
In September, during a press conference at his Los Angeles golf course, Trump threatened: “We won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”
Trump’s support in California has increased in recent years, which could further embolden him in his tussles with Democratic leaders there. In 2024, he improved on his vote share in Los Angeles and surrounding areas hit by the fires by 4.68 percentage points. And while he still lost the state overall, he grew his overall margin by 4 points compared to the 2020 election.
As for the impact of the fires on Californians, Trump said areas in Beverly Hills and around it were “being decimated” and that he had “many friends living in those houses.” He framed the losses as a potential hit to the state’s finances.
“The biggest homes, some of the most valuable homes in the world are just destroyed. I don’t even know. You talk about a tax base, if those people leave you’re going to lose half your tax base of California,” Trump said.
___
Associated Press Writer Maya Sweedler contributed to this report.
World
Thousands of Venezuelan opposition supporters take to the streets ahead of Maduro's third inauguration
- Venezuelan opposition parties and their supporters protested around the country on Thursday in a last-minute effort to put pressure on President Nicolás Maduro, one day before he is due to be sworn in for his third six-year term.
- Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela’s most popular opposition leader, made an appearance for the first time since August when she went into hiding at an unknown location.
- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, 62, has been in power since 2013.
Venezuelan opposition parties and their supporters – including leader Maria Corina Machado, who had been in hiding – protested around the country on Thursday in an eleventh-hour effort to put pressure on President Nicolás Maduro, one day before he is due to be sworn in for his third six-year term.
The opposition and the ruling party are locked in an ongoing dispute over last year’s presidential election, which they both claim to have won.
The country’s electoral authority and top court say Maduro, whose time in office has been marked by a deep economic and social crisis, won the July vote, though they have never published detailed tallies.
VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER MARÍA MACHADO HAS URGENT MESSAGE FOR PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP
The government, which has accused the opposition of fomenting fascist plots against it, said it will arrest opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez should he return to the country and has detained prominent opposition members and activists in the lead-up to the inauguration.
The opposition says Gonzalez, 75, won in a landslide. It has published its own vote tallies as evidence, winning support from governments around the world, including the United States, which consider Gonzalez the president-elect.
Machado, who is the country’s most popular opposition leader but who was barred from running in 2024, joined a protest in Chacao in eastern Caracas at around 2:20 p.m. local time (18:20 GMT), dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans and waving a Venezuelan flag from the top of a truck.
A supporter of Venezuela’s opposition reacts while gathering with fellow supporters ahead of President Nicolas Maduro’s inauguration for a third term, in Caracas, Venezuela, on Jan. 9, 2025. (Reuters/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria)
“They lost the streets, which are ours, they are barricaded in Miraflores (presidential palace),” Machado told the crowd. “From today we are in a new phase.”
Her appearance marked her first public outing since August when she went into hiding at an unknown location.
Machado, 57, urged protesters to peacefully flood the streets and repeatedly asked members of the police and military – who guarded polling stations during the election – to back Gonzalez’s victory.
“I’m not afraid, I lost my fear a long time ago,” said 70-year-old Neglis Payares, a retired central bank worker, as she gathered with other opposition supporters in western Caracas in the morning.
“We don’t know how many of them have their heart on our side,” she added, gesturing at security forces who had gathered near the protest.
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Reuters witnesses estimated some 7,000 people had gathered in Caracas by around 2:20 p.m. local time. In the days after the election, thousands also took to the streets.
Maduro, 62, has been in power since 2013. He has the vociferous support of leaders in the armed forces and the intelligence services, which are run by close allies of powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.
“I am convinced nothing will happen,” Cabello said on state television on Monday. “But that doesn’t mean we will lower our guard.”
The military’s financial interests make loyalty shifts unlikely, said BancTrust, a London investment bank, in a note. “A limited military rebellion would entail significant risks for those involved, thus diminishing incentives to participate,” it wrote.
‘WE HAVE NO WORK’
Security forces set up checkpoints around the country.
In the western oil city of Maracaibo, an opposition protest of dozens of people was quickly dispersed by motorcycle-mounted security forces by late morning. In central Valencia, protesters gathered at another location after initially being met with tear gas.
Opposition supporters also gathered in San Cristobal, near the border with Colombia, in the western city of Barquisimeto and in eastern Puerto Ordaz.
“I’m here because we need to get rid of this government. We have no money, we have no work,” 62-year-old housewife Roisa Gomez said at a protest in the central city of Maracay. “I’m fighting for my vote, which I cast for Edmundo Gonzalez. They cannot steal the election.”
Soon afterward, security forces used tear gas to disperse the Maracay protesters.
Many of the demonstrators were of retirement age and said they wanted change so their migrant children and grandchildren would return to the country. More than 7 million Venezuelans live abroad.
The ruling party was holding rival marches nationwide, images of which were broadcast on state television.
“We’ve come out to show that there is a democracy. On this side are the patriots who will be sworn in with Nicolas (Maduro), on the other side are fascists who want (foreign) intervention, war, to sell their country,” said 50-year-old Caracas motorcycle taxi driver Manual Rincon.
Gonzalez, who has been on a tour of the Americas this week and met with U.S. President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump’s national security advisor, has repeatedly pledged to return to Venezuela but given no details about how.
An arrest warrant was issued for Gonzalez for alleged conspiracy, prompting his September flight to Spain.
Machado is being investigated by the attorney general in at least two cases, but no warrant for her has been made public.
The government has detained several high-profile politicians and activists, including a former presidential candidate. This week, the attorney general’s office said it had freed more than 1,500 of the 2,000 people, including teenagers, detained during post-election protests.
Venezuelans living abroad also held protests, including in Madrid, where Gonzalez’s daughter Carolina Gonzalez spoke to hundreds of demonstrators.
“My dad sends a hug to all of you, glory to the brave people of Venezuela,” she said, her voice breaking.
The German Defence Minister has pledged additional military aid to Ukraine at today’s meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Ramstein.
At today’s Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Ramstein, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has confirmed that Germany will continue its support for Ukraine even after the federal elections in February.
“Ukraine can count on Germany, regardless of the outcome of the election on February 23”, Pistorius said.
Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Pistorius highlighted Germany’s contribution to protecting the largest logistics hub supporting Ukraine. “In the coming weeks, we will deploy two Patriot missile units and a total of 200 soldiers to Poland”, he announced. The Bundeswehr soldiers are expected to remain in Poland for six months as part of a NATO mission.
While Pistorius did not unveil a large-scale aid package for Ukraine, he pledged to provide the Ukrainian armed forces with three additional IRIS-T SLM and SLS air defence systems, along with 13 more Gepard tanks.
He also intends to supply additional missiles for the IRIS-T systems in the near future. These missiles are part of ongoing production and were originally allocated for the German Bundeswehr.
Contact Group to continue under Trump Presidency
Another key topic at the meeting was the impending Trump presidency in the United States. Pistorius emphasised the importance of continuing the Ukraine Contact Group meetings in Ramstein under Trump’s leadership.
But whether these meetings will actually persist, remains uncertain. However, should the new U.S. administration choose to discontinue the format, “it will need to continue in another form”, Pistorius asserted.
Zelenskyy places hope in Trump Presidency
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed his expectations for the incoming U.S. President, who is set to take office on January 20.
In light of the leadership transition, Zelenskyy also called for strengthened cooperation. “With Trump’s inauguration on January 20, we enter a period where we must work more closely together and achieve better results as a team”, he said during today’s Ukraine Contact Group meeting.
Speaking on a podcast with Russian-American host Lex Fridman earlier this week, Zelenskyy described Trump as a pivotal figure in the effort to stop Putin.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, former Ukrainian Minister of Economic Development and president of the Kyiv School of Economics, told Euronews he believed there will be a serious effort by the Trump administration to get a peace deal without selling out Ukraine. “The aid will continue as a part of strengthening leverage over Putin and enforcement of the deal”, he predicted.
According to Mylovanov, the EU and Germany will at the same time have to step up after Trump assumes office: “Trump has made it clear that Ukraine is the EU’s problem and Germany is the key power in the EU no matter how the local politics looks at the moment.”
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