Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Ukraine lashes Vladimir Putin as forces attack Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of resorting to “nuclear terror” after Russian forces fired at a nuclear power plant. WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
World
Don't miss out on the headlines from World. Followed categories will be added to My News.
One of the six reactors in Europe’s biggest nuclear power plants in Ukraine’s south was on fire after sustained shelling from Russian forces and local firefighters snipered as they tried to put it out.
The Zaporizhzhia plant in Enerhodar on the banks of the Dnieper River in the south of the country was bombed as Russian artillery attempts to cut power to one quarter of the country.
World leaders including President Joe Biden appealed to the Kremlin to cease firing on the plant with real fears of a nuclear leak.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of resorting to “nuclear terror” and wanting to “repeat” the Chernobyl disaster.
“No country other than Russia has ever fired on nuclear power units. This is the first time in our history. In the history of mankind. The terrorist state now resorted to nuclear terror,” he said in a video message.
The nuclear power plant fire was extinguished, Ukrainian emergency services said Friday, after Kyiv blamed Russian military shelling for the blaze.
Ukraine’s emergency services said it was able to put out the fire after the Russian military eventually allowed rescuers to access the site.
“At 06:20 (04:20 GMT) the fire in the training building of Zaporizhzhia NPP in Energodar was extinguished. There are no victims,” the emergency services said in a statement on Facebook.
Nuclear plant spokesman Andriy Tuz told Ukrainian television fire crews were unable to get to the reactor which was under maintenance and had been shut down but still contained nuclear fuels.
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
He said shells were falling directly on the plant and a fire had broken out but firefighters were being prevented from reaching the site with crews being shot at. He confirmed radiation was not leaking but it could.
“We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire,” Mr Tuz said in a video statement. “There is a real threat of nuclear danger in the biggest atomic energy station in Europe.”
Enerhodar is about 550km south east of capital Kyiv; Russia has already captured the defunct
Chernobyl reactor 100km to Kyiv’s north; in 1986 an accident saw the worst nuclear disaster in history which affected the world.
Across Ukraine people are tuning into a live streamed online feed of the nuclear power plant which shows tanks blocking the path of emergency vehicles and artillery fire hitting an office block at point blank range. Firefighters were eventually allowed in after negotiations with invading Russian forces,
Mr Zelensky had also been in contact with leaders from the UK, EU, Germany and Poland and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But he called on all European citizens to raise the alarm with their politicians about the madness.
“Russian propaganda has warned in the past that it would cover the world in nuclear ash. Now this isn’t just a warning, this is real.”
PUTIN: WAR WILL CONTINUE ‘TO THE END’; PUBLIC EXECUTION THREAT
Mr Putin has told French President Emmanuel Macron that Russia would reach its goals of military intervention in Ukraine, but the French President told the Russian leader he was making a “grave mistake”.
“I want to say that the special military operation is proceeding strictly in line with the timetable. According to plan. All the tasks that have been set are being successfully resolved,” Mr Putin said, a week after Russia invaded the country.
After the fall of a first major Ukrainian city to Russian forces, Mr Putin appeared in no mood to heed a global clamour for hostilities to end.
“Russia intends to continue the uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups,” Mr Putin said, according to a Kremlin account of the call with Mr Macron.
Taking to Twitter after the meeting, Mr Macron said: “I spoke to President Putin this morning. He refuses to stop his attacks on Ukraine at this point. It is vital to maintain dialogue to avoid human tragedy. I will continue my efforts and contacts. We must avoid the worst.
“Maintaining dialogue to protect the people, obtaining measures that will avoid human tragedy, putting an end to this war: this is the purpose of my commitment alongside President Zelensky and the international community. I am and will remain fully determined.”
But Mr Macron reportedly believes “the worst is to come” after speaking to Mr Putin who appears intent on seizing “the whole” of the country, an aide to the French leader said.
“The expectation of the president is that the worst is to come, given what President Putin told him,” a senior aide to the French leader told reporters on condition of anonymity.
“There was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us. He showed great determination to continue the operation,” the aide added.
I spoke to President Putin this morning. He refuses to stop his attacks on Ukraine at this point. It is vital to maintain dialogue to avoid human tragedy. I will continue my efforts and contacts. We must avoid the worst.
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 3, 2022
But the 44-year-old, who was at the heart of diplomatic efforts to avoid the conflict and has stayed in touch with Mr Putin even after the invasion, vowed to continue contacts “to avoid the worst”.
“My determination is and will remain total,” he said just hours before he is expected to confirm he is running in presidential elections next month.
In a grim assessment of the 90-minute talks, the third time they have spoken since last Thursday, the aide indicated that Mr Putin had shown no mood for compromise.
Mr Putin “wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine. He will, in his own words, carry out his operation to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine to the end.”
In response to Mr Putin’s claim of “de-Nazification”, Mr Macron replied that “either you are telling yourself stories or you’re looking for a pretext,”, according to his aide.
“In any case, what you’re saying does not match with reality and can in no way justify the violence of what you’re doing today, nor that your country is going to pay a very high price because it will end up an isolated, weakened country under sanctions for a long time,” Mr Macron continued.
The aide said that Mr Macron had also called Mr Putin’s claims “lies”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the country’s first Jewish leader.
RUSSIA CONSIDERS PUBLIC EXECUTIONS: REPORT
European intelligence officials have reportedly told Bloomberg the Kremlin is preparing plans on how to combat the tougher than expected resistance from Ukrainian civilians after taking over a city.
The plans include restrictions of protests, detaining political opponents, and possibly public killings, Bloomberg reported.
ZELENSKY: ‘I WANT TO TALK TO PUTIN’
Meanwhile, Mr Zelensky says he needs to “talk to Putin” because it’s the “only one way to end the war” as his Russian counterpart’s brutal assault on the Eurpoean nation intensifies.
Mr Zelensky appeared at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday local time and challenged the Russian president to meet with him face-to-face.
“Sit down with me to negotiate, just not at 30 metres,” he said in a sarcastic reference to a long table Putin used for his recent meetings with foreign leaders and Russian officials.
“I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?”
Mr Zelensky said there was “no other way to stop this war” than for the leaders to speak directly.
“It’s not about I want to talk with Putin ... I think I have to talk with Putin,” he said.
“The world has to talk to Putin.”
“I have to talk with Putin. The world has to talk with Putin.â€
— THE SAD TRUTH (@SmnWeekly) March 3, 2022
- Zelensky, holding a press conference, while Putin has Chechen and Russian special forces and hunting him.
Fearless.
Warrior.
Leader. pic.twitter.com/Rd4dGbg6Ts
Mr Zelensky called in turn on the West to up its military assistance, after NATO members ruled out enforcing a no-fly zone 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!” Mr Zelensky told a press conference.
“If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next.”
Mr Putin has so far not responded to Mr Zelensky’s invitations to talk but Russian and Ukrainian representatives have met for unsuccessful ceasfireetalks on neutral ground.
In response to reports that Mr Putin wants to kill him, Mr Zelensky said that he was personally fearful for his life and the lives of his family - who are believed to be the dictator’s number one and two targets, respectively. But as the president of Ukraine, he said, he has “no right to be afraid”.
His main fear is losing his home.“I fear the idea that I won’t have my country and when I’m asked where I’m from I might say that country doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “I fear for the next generation.”
Ukraine has cited the bloodiest war in modern history and vowed to never surrender the northern city of Kharkiv to advancing Russian forces.
“Kharkiv today is the Stalingrad of the 21st century,” said Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Mr Zelensky.
The reference to the 1943 Battle of Stalingrad will strike a chord with Russia, with the then Soviet Union holding off German forces in a bloody five-month urban war of attrition but suffered a million casualties.
RUSSIA THE ‘BRUTAL AGGRESSOR’
But now the tables have turned with Russia the brutal aggressor, marking the first week of war in Ukraine with its most despicable and brutal slaughter of innocents.
The bloodiest death toll in the week since the Russian president ordered Ukraine’s invasion, may come from the port city of Mariupol in Ukraine’s south which was pounded by artillery, rocket launchers and aircraft missiles almost endlessly today.
Military and civilian casualties here are expected to be in the hundreds; Ukraine authorities have already reported 2000 civilians had been killed in the one-week-old war.
The brutal onslaught has led to Ukraine to appeal for actual European Union intervention over and above sanctions and sporting boycotts.
Kharkiv is determined against all odds to hold back the Russian advance, raising the prospect of a long and bloody guerrilla war.
Ukraine’s second city endured hourly shelling that killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 100 but saw Russian paratroopers on the ground held back.
Stream the latest news on the war in Ukraine live & on demand on Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022
Russian missiles rained down on key administrative buildings including on Constitution Square, the City Council, the Palace of Labor, a regional police headquarters and a university building.
Meanwhile the first real dogfight of the war took place in the skies over Kyiv with two Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter jets battling more fancied Sukhoi Su-35 warplanes with two Sukhoi’s shot down and Ukraine losing one fighter.
In the most brutal day of the war, Russia also bombed the cities of Zhytomyr and Chernihly, and port city of Odessa.
Last night Russia overtook the strategic hub of Kherson in southern Ukraine, making it the first major city to fall since the war began.
It means Mr Putin now has a bridgehead from which his forces can cross the River Dnieper, which cuts the country in two — and ultimately attack Kyiv from a second direction.
But it was the horrendous day and night shelling of Mariupol that will stun the world.
Mariupol deputy mayor Sergiy Orlov said the rockets and missiles had “nearly totally destroyed” a riverside district, home to 130,000 people.
The death toll was not known as authorities have not had a chance to enter the quarter but it was suggested “hundreds” had possibly been killed.
“We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead. We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies,” Mr Orlov said.
“The Russian army is working through all their weapons here – artillery, multiple rocket launch systems, aeroplanes, tactical rockets. They are trying to destroy the city.”
Mariupol, like Kherson, is significantly strategic since it would create a land bridge between Russia’s already annexed Donetsk region in Ukraine’s east and the Crimea peninsula in the south.
Significantly, Russia for the first time admitted it had sustained casualties, 500 dead and 1600 injured. But Ukrainian authorities estimate it had killed more than 7000 Russian troops.
Meanwhile in the first week of this brutal war, one million people have official fled Ukraine across the country’s various international borders.
More Coverage
Originally published as Russia-Ukraine war live updates: Ukraine lashes Vladimir Putin as forces attack Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
‘Lethal, precise’: Israel’s ominous promise
Israel has sent its clearest signal yet that its retaliatory strikes against Iran will be on a devastating scale.
Read more
Prince William reveals one thing royal kids fight over
Prince William has spilt on the one issue that causes chaos at home between his children, as an insider shed light on the future king’s sweet nightly ritual with Princess Catherine.
Read more