Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is “the worst thing that could happen in the history” of Europe’s nuclear energy sector. Russia is using the plant for “radiation blackmail,” he said in his nightly address Monday. The remarks came after he met with Rafael Mariano Grossi, the chief of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Kremlin’s troops have controlled the plant since last year, after seizing it during the first weeks of the invasion. But crossfire during the fighting has threatened to shut down the reactors’ coolers, heightening the risk of a nuclear meltdown. The plant has been forced to rely on its emergency diesel generators at least six times during the war, according to the IAEA.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
In war-ravaged Lyman, Ukrainians live underground months after liberation: Repeated shelling of a residential area in this eastern Ukrainian city has pushed its inhabitants underground, Alex Horton and Anastacia Galouchka report. Children attend online classes under electric lights. Adults watch small TVs for news updates of Ukraine’s military operations. Pets rummage around in small cages.
“Of course we’ve gotten used to it. It’s calmer for me to be in the basement,” one retired mail carrier, who now serves warm bowls of borscht and meat patties to residents underground, told The Washington Post. “I miss my children, and grandchildren,” she said, her gray eyes welling.