Former Vice President Mike Pence told some of the Republican Party’s top donors on Friday night that the party cannot offer any support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, drawing a contrast with former President Trump, who called Putin “smart” and “savvy” during an interview last week.
“There is no room in this party for apologists for Putin,” Pence said, according to excerpts of the speech obtained by CBS News. “There is only room for champions of freedom.”
“The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course he’s smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb,” Trump said to the crowd.
Trump is expected to address donors at the retreat on Saturday night.
A significant portion of Pence’s remarks focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He told the donors he has been “deeply inspired” by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and he criticized some of President Biden’s foreign policy decisions, including the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Pence also asserted that NATO’s expansion is not responsible for Russia’s invasion. Trump frequently bashed NATO while he was in office and last week at CPAC slammed leaders of NATO nations as “not so smart” for their handling of the run-up to Russia’s invasion.
“Where would our friends in Eastern Europe be today if they were not in NATO?” Pence said. “Where would Russian tanks be today if NATO had not expanded the borders of freedom?”
Pence also encouraged Republicans to look towards the future rather than back at the 2020 election if they are to be successful in the upcoming midterms. That vision also marks a clear departure from Trump’s view; he still speaks at length about his 2020 loss and continues to baselessly assert that the election was rigged.
“We cannot win by fighting yesterday’s battles, or by relitigating the past,” Pence said. “Elections are about the future. My fellow Republicans, we can only win if we are united around an optimistic vision for the future based on our highest values.”
Pence is staking out his differences with Trump about a week after the former president told attendees at a private reception at CPAC that they would be “very happy,” in response to a question about a 2024 run. Trump also told the crowd that he knew who they “don’t want as your V.P.”
This isn’t the first time that Pence has criticized his former boss. Last month, he said that “Trump is wrong” for claiming Pence had a right to overturn the election. Last June, Pence said he doesn’t know whether he and Trump would “ever see eye-to-eye” about the January 6 attack at the Capitol.
As Pence continues to plot his future, the former vice president is expected to soon unveil what he calls a “freedom agenda” that he developed with nearly 50 fellow conservatives.
“Our goal is to help unite conservatives around an agenda that is optimistic, forward-looking and thoroughly conservative and can save our country from the radical left,” Pence said.
Pence accused Mr. Biden of “singing from the Republican hymnal” during his State of Union address this week by focusing on a secure border, funding the police, keeping schools open and buying American. He also criticized the president’s remarks on immigration reform, transgender children and raising taxes on corporations and wealthy Americans.
And he also took issue with the president’s handling the Ukraine crisis, saying Mr. Biden “squandered the deterrence that our administration put in place to keep Putin and Russian from even trying to redraw international boundaries by force.” He believes the Biden administration should take further steps to sanction Russia, including sanctioning all Russian oil exports worldwide.
Like other Republicans, Pence paints an optimistic vision of what’s at stake in 2022, stressing that the midterms provide a rare opportunity to win a large share of seats. He said the “smart (Democrats) are heading for the hills,” citing the more than 30 House incumbents who are retiring at the end of this term.
“Let’s be clear-eyed about the opportunity before us,” Pence said. “We are looking at a tidal wave of Republican victory on a scale we haven’t seen since 2010, or even since the Republican Revolution of 1994. It is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Anastasiia Novitska was supposed to be wearing a lace wedding dress last week, surrounded by family and friends, while she exchanged vows with her future husband. She was instead forced to cancel the wedding and leave her fiancé behind as Russia invaded Ukraine.
“Basically, my life was destroyed just in one single night,” Novitska told ABC News Live in an interview on Friday. “We were getting everything ready for the wedding, we already started decorating the hall, all of the guests were booked, some of them were already in the city waiting for the wedding day and when I woke up early in the morning, I realized unfortunately, it’s no longer going to happen.”
The Russian invasion was a shock to Novitska, just like most of Ukrainians. She described the second day of the invasion, when her neighborhood was beginning to come under attack.
“I thought that everything would be safe in my city. But then on the second day of the war, on the 25th of February, while I was asleep I heard that bombs were attacking the airport next to me,” she recalled. “The attack was so hard that all of us were awake just in two seconds, we went into the underground, but thank God everyone was safe.”
She then made the tough but necessary decision to leave her home and entire life behind to find safety in Poland. Her fiancé stayed behind to fight in the war.
The United Nations says over one million people have fled from Ukraine sight the fighting began. More than half of those refugees have fled to Poland, the U.N. says.
“I had to leave everything I had in my country, I had to leave my fiancé, I had to leave my relatives, my friends,” Novitska said. “When I walked into my room to say bye to my dress, which was hanging next to the wardrobe, I started crying because God knows when I will wear it again and if I will see those people who I left in my house.”
Novitska said she’s still in contact with her fiancé, and that he has called and texted her every day since they’ve been separated.
“At the moment he’s helping the volunteers to gather the clothes, food, water, and all needed stuff for our soldiers,” she said.
“He’s going to build the barracks to save the city in case tanks and soldiers come in. Hopefully, he will be safe, and I will see him again and he will stay alive,” Novitska added, while holding back tears.
While speaking with ABC News Live, a loud alarm that sounded like a siren began to go off on her phone. It was an alert from her hometown.
“They are having air bombs attacking,” she explained. “This was an alarm to go to the underground. There is a possibility bombs will come into our city. To be safe, it rings on my phone and radio to force all the people currently outside on in the house or in the flats to go immediately underground.”
Although she’s safe in Poland now, that’s one way she’s able to keep track of what’s happening back home.
Novitska said she hopes one day soon she will be reunited with her loved ones and be able to have the wedding she was forced to say goodbye to last week.
“I’m still hoping the next day that I will hear the magic words that the war has finished and that I can return back and start planning my completely new life,” said Novitska. “I know that everyone is praying for this, but we’re just hoping for better.”
“We are committed to following public health guidance, and our health officials have stated that masks in schools are no longer required but still recommended,” said Superintendent Vince Matthews.
Matthews said the pandemic has required the district to “constantly change,” but that he believes it is moving in the right direction “when we follow the science.”
San Francisco Unified joins Piedmont, Alameda, Mt. Diablo, Mill Valley, Dublin, San Ramon and many other districts across the Bay Area in aligning with the state. Oakland and Berkeley were among those that had not yet announced a decision by Friday afternoon, and Berkeley lifted outside mask mandates only last week.
Some families celebrated the move, saying it’s important for kids to return to normalcy, while others will surely worry about the change, citing the potential for the virus to make the unvaccinated and medically vulnerable quite ill.
“Many SFUSD parents will be breathing a sigh of relief upon learning that their school district will continue to follow the guidance of their local health department rather than forging an independent path unmoored to local health policy,” said Dr. Jeanne Noble, UCSF Emergency Department director of COVID response.
Parent Cindy Burg was among them.
“We know the science has been clear,” she said. “I know there are kids that may be at higher risk and those kids should still be able to mask. It should be a choice at this point.”
But she also noted that it will likely take time to get her son, who’s in the second grade in the district, to get used to it.
“He’s such a rule follower,” she said, adding he’s had a mask on his face for much of the past two years. “It’s going to take him a while to get comfortable with it.”
And the decision is likely to cause concern among many communities disproportionately effected by the pandemic, or those with greater risk of severe illness because of health conditions.
“I do worry my children could contract the disease or there might be another surge,” said San Francisco parent Jianqiao Zhen, speaking through a Cantonese translator. “Or there might be another surge and I believe (lifting the mandate) needs to be delayed.”
Health experts have cautioned that if there’s another surge or another concerning variant, masks might need to be reinstated.
In lifting the mandate, Gov. Gavin Newsom said school districts and individuals would be making their own decisions.
“One size does not fit all in California,” he told The Chronicle recently, adding masks are still “strongly recommended,” particularly in areas that continue to have higher case rate numbers.
Newsom added that it’s important to not blame anyone for wearing masks or not wearing masks as the mandates lift.
“We want no scapegoating,” he said. “We don’t want anyone to be stigmatized on that.”
San Francisco is joining many districts throughout the region, although a few haven’t yet decided or are waiting on county guidance.
On Feb. 28, state officials announced that California, along with Oregon and Washington, would lift the K-12 school mask mandate starting March 12. All states urged unvaccinated adults and students to continue wearing masks in schools. The mask mandate was also dropped for California child care facilities.
The San Francisco public health department agreed last week to align with the state and drop the mandate, but the same day, a San Francisco Unified deputy superintendent said, “Universal indoor masking will continue to be in effect at SFUSD as part of our layered approach to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our schools.”
Some infectious disease experts said before Friday’s announcement it was reasonable for the district to keep the mask mandate.
One question is whether the city can encourage more families to vaccinate younger children before the change takes effect. More than 87% of those 5 and older in San Francisco are fully vaccinated, according to city officials, although among those 5 to 11, an estimated 69% have had the complete series of shots.
Among children under 11, vaccination rates in the city vary widely by race and ethnicity, with just 29% of Black children and 48% of Hispanic children fully vaccinated compared to 81% of Asian and 64% of white children. Pacific Islander and American Indian students also have lower rates.
“We recognize changes in masking … will be a transition for our community,” Matthews said in a statement. “We are starting with middle and high schools, where there are higher vaccination rates, in order to give more time for families of younger students to get their children vaccinated.”
March 4 (Reuters) – The United States and its allies heavily criticized Russia on Friday at the United Nations over its shelling and seizure overnight in Ukraine of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, and some demanded that Moscow not let such an attack happen again.
Many of the Security Council’s 15 envoys expressed “grave concern” and shock, warning against the possibility of a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster – a nuclear accident in Ukraine when it was part of then Soviet Union considered to be the worst in history.
They said the attack was against international humanitarian law and urged Moscow to refrain from any military operations targeting the nuclear facilities and allow Ukrainian personnel to be allowed onto the plant to carry out their work.
“The world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told an emergency meeting of the Security Council, convened following the seizure of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine by Russian troops.
“Russia’s attack last night put Europe’s largest nuclear power plant at grave risk. It was incredibly reckless and dangerous. And it threatened the safety of civilians across Russia, Ukraine and Europe,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
As shells hit the area early on Friday, a blaze broke out in a training building – triggering a spasm of alarm around the world before the fire was extinguished and officials said the facility was safe. read more
Ukraine ambassador to the U.N. Sergiy Kyslytsya called for all Russian forces to be withdrawn from the plant and a no-fly zone over the country to protect the civilian population from air attacks.
A general view of the United Nations Security Council meeting after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, at the United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S. February 28, 2022. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
Officials remained worried about the precarious circumstances, with Ukrainian staff operating under Russian control in battlefield conditions beyond the reach of administrators.
“France strongly condemns this attack on the integrity of a nuclear structure, which we need to guarantee,” Nicolas de Riviere said in his speech. “The results of the aggression of Russia against Ukraine are possibly devastating for human health and the environment,” he added.
United Kingdom ambassador to the United Nations Barbara Woodward said: “It must not happen again. Even in the midst of an illegal invasion of Ukraine, Russia must keep fighting away from and protect the safety and security of nuclear sites.”
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Raphael Grossi described the situation as “normal operations, but in fact there is nothing normal about this.”
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russian began its invasion on Feb. 24. Western nations retaliated with sanctions that have plunged Russia into economic isolation.
Russia’s envoy to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia dismissed Western uproar over the nuclear power plant and called Friday’s Security Council meeting another attempt by Ukrainian authorities to create “artificial hysteria”.
“At present, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and adjacent territory are being guarded by Russian troops,” he said.
Separately, France and Mexico are working on a resolution to the U.N. Security Council next week that will address the humanitarian impact of Russia’s invasion, diplomats said.
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV, March 4 (Reuters) – Russian forces in Ukraine seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in an assault that caused alarm around the world and that Washington said had risked catastrophe, although officials said later that the facility was now safe.
Fighting also raged elsewhere in Ukraine as troops besieged and bombarded several cities in the second week of an invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The capital Kyiv, in the path of a Russian armoured column that has been stalled on a road for days, came under renewed attack, with explosions audible from the city centre. read more
The southeastern port city of Mariupol – a key prize for the Russian forces – has been encircled and shelled. Its mayor said on Friday it had no water, heat or electricity and is running out of food after five days under attack.
“We are simply being destroyed,” Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.
However, NATO allies on Friday rejected Ukraine’s appeal for no-fly zones, saying they were increasing support but that stepping in directly would lead to a broader, even more brutal European war.
Putin’s actions have drawn almost universal worldwide condemnation and Western countries have imposed heavy sanctions in an effort to squeeze the Russian economy.
A humanitarian disaster is also unfolding, with more than one million people seeking refuge in western Ukraine and in neighbouring countries. Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded since the invasion started on Feb. 24.
The attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant brought the conflict to a perilous moment. As shells hit the area, a blaze broke out in a training building – triggering a spasm of alarm around the world before the fire was extinguished and officials said the facility was safe.
The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the world had narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe.
The attack reflected a “dangerous new escalation” in Russia’s invasion, she said during an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, warning that “imminent danger” persisted and demanding assurances from Moscow that such an assault will not happen again.
An official at Energoatom, the Ukrainian state nuclear plant operator, told Reuters fighting had ceased and radiation levels were normal. But his organisation no longer had contact with the plant’s managers or control over its nuclear material, he said.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Raphael Grossi said the plant was undamaged from what he believed was a Russian projectile. Only one of its six reactors was working, at around 60% of capacity.
Russia’s defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on an attack by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
The plant and adjacent territory were now being guarded by Russian troops, Moscow’s envoy to the United Nations said.
APPEAL SPURNED
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz phoned Putin and demanded he call off the war. But NATO allies meeting in Brussels rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s demand for no-fly zones.
“We are not part of this conflict,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference.
“We have a responsibility as NATO allies to prevent this war from escalating beyond Ukraine because that would be even more dangerous, more devastating and would cause even more human suffering.”
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Surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine March 4, 2022, in this screengrab from a video obtained from social media. Zaporizhzhya NPP via YouTube/via REUTERS
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also rejected a no-fly zone, saying the only way to implement one over Ukraine would be for NATO forces to shoot down Russian planes.
Moscow denies targeting civilians in Ukraine and says its aim is to disarm its neighbour, counter what it views as NATO aggression and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer a country of 44 million people.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney lamented “the images we see of apartment blocks in working class areas outside of cities with half of buildings gone, in smouldering rubble.”
More EU sanctions were coming, potentially including a ban on Russian-flagged ships in European ports and blocking imports of steel, timber, aluminium or coal, he said.
DEFENDING KYIV
In Kyiv’s Borshchahivka neighbourhood, the twisted engine of a cruise missile lay in the street where it had apparently been downed overnight by Ukrainian air defences.
Russian troops “all should go to hell,” said Igor Leonidovich, 62, an ethnic Russian who moved to Ukraine 50 years ago as a boy. “For the occupiers it is getting worse and worse, every day.”
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said an advance had been halted on the southern port of Mykolayiv after local authorities said Russian troops had entered it. If captured, the city of 500,000 people would be the biggest yet to fall.
Adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said: “We can feel cautious optimism about the future prospects of the enemy offensive – I think that it will be stopped in other areas also.”
Russian forces have made their biggest advances in the south, where they captured their first sizeable Ukrainian city, Kherson, this week. Bombing has worsened in recent days in the northeast cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv.
Ukrainians have been fleeing west, many crowding into Lviv near the Polish border.
James Elder of the United Nations children’s agency said doctors in Lviv were preparing a system to identify children in case of mass casualties.
“A green dot means fine over here, a yellow dot means critical support. They are learning a black dot means the child won’t make it,” he said.
CLAMPDOWN
In Russia, where Putin’s main opponents have largely been jailed or driven into exile, the war has led to a further crackdown on dissent.
Authorities have banned reports that refer to what it terms a “special military operation” as a “war”. Anti-war demonstrations have been squelched with thousands of arrests.
The BBC on Friday stopped reporting in Russia after parliament passed a law there imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for anyone found to be intentionally spreading “fake” news. read more
Russia earlier cut access to several foreign news organisations’ websites, including the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle, for spreading what it said was false information about its war in Ukraine.
Russia also blocked Facebook (FB.O) in response to what its communications regulator said were restrictions on access to Russian media on the platform.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seen here in December 2021, has drawn criticism from other lawmakers after making comments that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be assassinated by someone in his country.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seen here in December 2021, has drawn criticism from other lawmakers after making comments that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be assassinated by someone in his country.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham’s suggestion that Russians should assassinate President Vladimir Putin has drawn the ire of Republicans and Democrats concerned over the war in Ukraine.
“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” the South Carolina Republican asked in a tweet.
Roman Emperor Julius Caesar was assassinated by Brutus and others in the Rome Senate on the Ides of March. Graham was also referring to German Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, who tried to kill Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1944.
“The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service,” Graham said.
Asked about the remarks during the White House news briefing on Friday afternoon, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “That is not the position of the United States government and certainly not a statement you’d hear come from the mouth of anybody working in this administration.”
Among lawmakers concerned over Graham’s suggestion were Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
“I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks as the administration works to avoid WWlll. As the world pays attention to how the US and it’s leaders are responding, Lindsey’s remarks and remarks made by some House members aren’t helpful,” Omar tweeted.
“This is an exceptionally bad idea,” Cruz tweeted in response to Graham’s remarks. “Use massive economic sanctions; BOYCOTT Russian oil & gas; and provide military aid so the Ukrainians can defend themselves. But we should not be calling for the assassination of heads of state.”
Graham made similar remarks on television Thursday night.
Assassination during military conflict is specifically forbidden by the Lieber Code, which President Abraham Lincoln issued as a general order for U.S. forces in 1863.
Section IX of the code states that the laws of war forbid declaring a member of a hostile force or a citizen or subject of a hostile government to be an outlaw “who may be slain without trial.”
“Civilized nations look with horror upon offers of rewards for the assassination of enemies as relapses into barbarism,” according to the Lieber Code, which underpins international conventions on warfare.
Graham’s remarks drew wide attention and criticism. In response, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said he believes Putin should be held responsible for any war crimes committed, citing an investigation by the International Criminal Court.
The senator’s communications director, Kevin Bishop, sought to clarify his comments.
Graham “also expressed he was okay with a coup to remove Putin as well,” Bishop said. “Basic point, Putin has to go,” he said, adding that the Russian people should find the “off ramp” to the international crisis.
Russia’s media regulator said Friday it will block access to Meta-owned Facebook in the country as it escalates pressure on media outlets and tech platforms amid its invasion of Ukraine.
The regulator said Facebook violated federal law by restricting access to accounts of several state-affiliated media outlets, according to a translated version of a statement. The move marks an escalation from earlier limits Russia placed on Facebook.
At the time, Meta’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said Russian authorities had ordered the platform to stop fact-checking and labeling content posted on Facebook by state-owned outlets like RT and Sputnik. Meta refused the request, he said.
The regulator said Friday it’s found 26 “cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook” since October 2020.
“Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” Clegg said in a statement on Twitter in response to Friday’s blocking. “We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action.”
An independent service, GlobalCheck, appeared to show as of Friday afternoon that Twitter was unavailable on Russian ISPs. The Russian media regulator’s site did not yet show any new actions against Twitter. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The “vast majority” of a $350 million US security assistance package has been delivered to Ukraine, a senior defense official said, one week after it was officially approved by the White House.
Approximately $240 million of the package has reached Ukraine, and the rest should arrive within days and maybe weeks “but not longer,” the official said Friday. The components that have already been delivered including “the most-needed capabilities, like anti-armor capabilities.”
The equipment being sent in is equipment on which the Ukrainians have already received training, including some “just-in-time” training in late December and early January. The Ukrainians can “use proficiently” the vast majority of the military equipment being sent in, the official said.
The US has also been coordinating the delivery of security assistance from other countries. A total of 14 countries have contributed security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, but the official declined to list the countries, instead preferring they speak for themselves.
US European Command is using its liaison network with allies and partners to coordinate “in real time” to send materials into Ukraine, the official said.
EUCOM is also coordinating with other countries, including particularly with the UK, in terms of the delivery process “to ensure that we are using our resources to maximum efficiency to support the Ukrainians in an organized way,” the official said.
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Friday reinstated the death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded hundreds more.
An appeals court set aside Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s sentence in 2020, finding that the trial judge erred in excluding mitigating evidence that suggested the defendant’s elder brother, Tamerlan, was more culpable for the attack and limiting the questions defense attorneys could ask prospective jurors about their exposure to news accounts of the crime.
Journalists reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 2. Media coverage of Russia’s invasion has been massive.
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Journalists reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 2. Media coverage of Russia’s invasion has been massive.
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It’s a fact of modern life that some wars get more attention than others. And Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has captured the public’s attention in the West in a way that other recent wars — like those in Yemen or Ethiopia — simply haven’t.
The reason is obvious, says Christopher Blattman, an economist at the University of Chicago and the author of Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace. This is more than a regional conflict. It’s a potential global conflagration. Superpowers are taking sides. There are fears that it could lead to nuclear escalation.
But what about other wars going on right now? In the Tigray region of Ethiopia, for example, a conflict that started in 2020 has led to thousands of casualties and displaced an estimated 2 million people. That crisis has largely been ignored by the world, saysMagdalene Abraha, a writer in London of Tigrayan heritage. She has many family members in that region of Ethiopia.
Abraha does not object to the massive and ongoing media blitz in Ukraine. “My first reaction was: fantastic,” she says. “Human suffering of that nature should be covered hugely and on a global scale.”
“In the same breath,” she adds, “it would be good to have this kind of attention to all crises relating to war, famine and natural disasters in the world.”
Societies often care more about conflicts they relate to
Some observers point to other reasons for the Western world’s interest in Ukraine. “Generally speaking, it seems reasonable for any society to care more about conflicts that are geographically closer, share a social identity (which could include race and religion), share a language or share an imperial or colonial history,” Blattman wrote in an email to NPR.
Jackline Kemigisa, a journalist and podcaster based in Kampala, Uganda, says a recent BBC news clip of an interview with former Ukrainian official David Sakvarelidze makes that point in stark — and offensive — terms. He described those affected by the Ukraine war as “European people with blue eyes and blond hair being killed, children being killed every day.” His statement was widely condemned by journalists and activists as racist.
Kemigisa, who posted a viral Twitter thread criticizing how Western media organizations have covered Ukraine, is one of the critics. Shefinds Sakvarelidze’s sentiment highly problematic.
His comments, she says, “signals to the audience that this was the human being” worth protecting — not the Black and brown lives lower in the “hierarchy” created by the world’s “white supremacist, capitalistic system.”
“If we are to give sympathy, let’s give it to everyone who is a victim of war rather than selectively applying it based on location and race,” says Kemigisa.
The media can drive a sweeping global response to a crisis — to a point
Media broadcasting vans parked in front of a hotel in Maidan Square on March 1 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Media broadcasting vans parked in front of a hotel in Maidan Square on March 1 in Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Media coverage doesn’t merely create public awareness, says Martin Scott, a senior lecturer in media and international development at the University of East Anglia. It can have an impact on the world’s response.
For example, when global attention is focused on a crisis, that can lead to greater mobilization of a government’s humanitarian aid allocations.
In December, Scott and a team of researchers surveyed senior government decision-makers in 16 of the world’s largest donor countries to understand how news stories influence how much they give in an emergency. The authors of the report write that “intense news coverage” of a crisis, in certain circumstances, “created pressure” on those decision-makers that “led to an increase in emergency aid allocations.”
“The Beirut blast is a good example of that,” says Scott, referring to the explosion of ammonium nitrate at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon in 2020, which killed more than 200 people. “It was media coverage that drove more humanitarian aid allocations to the Beirut blast than otherwise would have been given, than perhaps even the humanitarian needs required.”
News coverage can also dramatically impact donations
News coverage can also dramatically impact donations. Right now, funds from the public are flowing into relief efforts for Ukraine. “Ukraine is generating a level of sustained, across-the-board media and public attention that other crises just haven’t generated recently. And we know that does affect giving,” says Lynn Hector, interim managing director of communications at the global humanitarian organization Mercy Corps.
Although Hector says it’s too early to tell “how sizable and prolonged” giving to Ukraine will be, “we expect to surpass with Ukraine what we raised in its entirety for the Haiti 2021 earthquake” — $2.5 million so far. Mercy Corps’ fundraising appeal for Ukraine began last weekend.
But an initial burst of giving doesn’t last. Hector explains that the longer a crisis goes on, the less likely people are to pay attention — and therefore less likely to give. “It’s really difficult to generate sustained giving,” she says, especially for “protracted crises like Afghanistan or Syria.”
And while attention can help boost donations, sustained media coverage doesn’t guarantee an end to a crisis – or the suffering that ensues. A study from 2021 in The Journal of Humanitarian Action looked at whether news stories of the Rohingya refugee crisis in The New York Times and The Guardian had an effect on efforts to address human suffering. Despite hundreds of articles published between 2010 and 2020, the authors found that the stories were “not sufficient to initiate humanitarian interventions” — likemotivating decision-makers to enforce economic sanctions or engage in diplomatic efforts to reduce violence.
There are proposals to bring wider coverage to other conflicts
So the experts admit, the world is simply not going to pay equal attention to all crises. Is there a way to change that?
One recommendation from the international aid group CARE: Media outlets should find creative ways to keep underreported crises top of mind. That’s what CARE proposed in its annual report of under-reported humanitarian crises in January.
But that kind of recommendation is hard to bring to reality. “The decrease in budgets, the drop in advertising revenues and the reduced network of correspondents around the world have caused a void in the media coverage of crises,” said Omar Bizo, manager of Appui au Développement Local (Support to Local Development), a nonprofit organization in Niger, writing in theCARE report.
Bizo, whose country is facing a wave of climate disasters, doesn’t think it’s a hopeless cause. He suggests committing a certain percentage of airtime to a crisis, broadcasting a special roundtable discussion on the topic or even giving money to local journalists in the area of conflict.
As for Abraha, she wishes journalists could report on the conflict in Ethiopia with the same enthusiasm and heart she has seen in their coverage of Ukraine — with vivid characters, from children whose cancer treatment was interrupted to an elderly Russian woman who was arrested for carrying a war protest sign.
If there were the same kind of attention devoted to Ethiopia, she says, then perhaps the world would care more about the conflict — and the real people who are affected — “people with thriving careers. Passions, relationships, goals.”
Like her cousin in Tigray, who’s in his 20s. “He had dreams of being an engineer,” she says. “He’s an amazing son who loves his mother. He loves football and riding his bike.”
With internet and phone communications cut off from Tigray, she has not heard from him since last summer.
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV, March 4 (Reuters) – Russian forces in Ukraine seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in what Washington called a reckless assault that risked catastrophe, although a blaze in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.
Combat raged elsewhere in Ukraine as Russian forces surrounded and bombarded several cities in the second week of an invasion launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. read more
A Ukrainian presidential adviser said an advance had been halted on the southern city of Mykolayiv, after local authorities said Russian troops had entered it. If captured, the city of 500,000 people would be the biggest yet to fall.
The capital Kyiv, in the path of a Russian armoured column that has been stalled on a road for days, came under renewed attack, with air raid sirens blaring in the morning and explosions audible from the city centre. read more
The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine called the Russian assault on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant a “war crime”. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said it showed how reckless the Russian invasion has been.
“It just raises the level of potential catastrophe to a level that nobody wants to see,” he told CNN.
Video verified by Reuters showed one building aflame and a volley of incoming shells before a large incandescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the Feb. 24 start of the invasion, which has plunged Russia into economic isolation as Western nations seek to punish Putin.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Raphael Grossi paid homage to the nuclear plant’s Ukrainian staff: “to their bravery, to their courage, to their resilience because they are doing this in very difficult circumstances.”
The plant was undamaged from what he believed was a Russian projectile, Grossi said. Only one of its six reactors was working, at around 60% of capacity.
An official at Energoatom, the Ukrainian state nuclear plant operator, told Reuters there was no further fighting and radiation levels were normal, but said his organisation no longer had contact with the plant’s managers or control over its nuclear material.
Russia’s defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
‘EUROPEANS WAKE UP’
“Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians – Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged cities, pounding them with artillery and air strikes.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and says its aim is to disarm its neighbour, counter what it views as NATO aggression and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer a country of 44 million people.
Foreign ministers of NATO countries met in Brussels, promising stronger action.
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Surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine March 4, 2022, in this screengrab from a video obtained from social media. Zaporizhzhya NPP via YouTube/via REUTERS
Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the latest Western leader to phone Putin and demand he call off the war. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Russia was increasing its strikes on civilians: “It is clear to see that this war of aggression by Putin is targeting the civilian population with the most brutal rigor.”
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney lamented “the images we see of apartment blocks in working class areas outside of cities with half of buildings gone, in smoldering rubble.”
“Unfortunately it looks like we are going see more of this in the coming days and weeks. The picture looks very bleak and very dark in terms of Russia’s intentions and there doesn’t seem to be any willingness to discuss a ceasefire,” he said.
DEFENDING KYIV
In Kyiv’s Borshchahivka neighbourhood, the twisted engine of a cruise missile lay in the street where it had apparently been downed overnight by Ukrainian air defences. Residents were furious but also proud of the successful defence of the city of 3 million, which Russia had hoped to capture within days.
Russian troops “all should go to hell,” said Igor Leonidovich, 62, an ethnic Russian who moved to Ukraine 50 years ago as a boy. “For the occupiers it is getting worse and worse, every day.”
In Russia, where Putin’s main opponents have largely been jailed or driven into exile, the war has led to a further crackdown on dissent. Authorities have banned reports that refer to what it terms a “special military operation” as a “war”. Anti-war demonstrations have been squelched with thousands of arrests.
On Friday, Russia shut down foreign broadcasters including the BBC and Voice of America. The main independent Russian broadcasters, TV Dozhd and Ekho Moskvy radio, were shuttered on Thursday.
Parliament on Friday passed a law imposing a jail term of up to 15 years for spreading intentionally “fake” news about the military. read more
Russia has been subjected to economic isolation never before visited on such a large economy. Ireland’s Coveney said more EU sanctions were coming, potentially including a ban on Russian-flagged ships in European ports and blocking imports of steel, timber, aluminium or coal.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Western countries should look at measures targeting Russia’s oil and gas sector – still excluded from sanctions.
Russian forces have made their biggest advances in the south, where they captured their first sizeable Ukrainian city, Kherson, this week. The mayor of nearby Mykolayiv said they were now inside his city, a shipbuilding port of 500,000 people.
Zelenskiy’s military adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said the Russian advance there had been halted: “We can feel cautious optimism about the future prospects of the enemy offensive – I think that it will be stopped in other areas also.”
The southeastern port of Mariupol has been encircled and bombarded, Britain said in an intelligence update. Authorities there have described a humanitarian emergency.
Bombing has worsened in recent days in the northeast cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv.
Ukrainians have been fleeing west, many crowding into Lviv near the Polish border.
James Elder, a spokesperson for the UN children’s agency, said doctors in Lviv were preparing a system to identify children in case of mass casualties: “A green dot means fine over here, a yellow dot means critical support. They are learning a black dot means the child won’t make it.”
Bipartisan calls are growing on Capitol Hill for the United States to ban imports of oil from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, but the White House stopped short of an outright ban — and experts said the impact would be limited.
The United States and other Western nations have imposed an unprecedented raft of sanctions on Russia, but they have created exceptions for the oil and gas sector — from which the Russian government derives much of its income — because of fears cutting off the supply would drive up energy prices around the world.
But Republican members of Congress have for weeks been calling for a ban on imports of Russian crude oil and petroleum products, saying it would kneecap Russian President Vladimir Putin more than the Biden administration’s sanctions have so far.
“Putin’s major source of revenue is selling oil and gas and Biden’s given an exception,” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Wednesday. “You can continue getting billions of dollars to fund the invasion of Ukraine.”
Experts predict muted impact on Russia
Just 1% of Russia’s total crude oil exports in 2020 went to the United States, according to U.S. government figures.
So while cutting off that trade would force Russia to find other buyers for that relatively small amount of oil, it would not have as significant of an impact as if Europe — where Russia sends nearly half its oil — stopped them, experts told ABC News.
And the crippling financial sanctions on Russia’s banks and other parts of its economy have already turned off potential buyers of Russian oil who are wary of doing business in a country quickly becoming a financial pariah, the experts said.
“Russian oil has already been de facto sanctioned” by the United States and its partners, Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News.
The global market has already started to react, according to Ben Cahill, an expert on energy security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“For Russia, this is part of a bigger set of challenges — which is a lot of people don’t want to buy their oil,” Cahill said. “There’s a lot of self-sanctioning happening in the marketplace.”
The U.S. relies on Russian oil more than Russia depends on sending its oil to the U.S., with about 7 to 10% of the United States’ imports of crude oil and petroleum products coming from Russia in recent years.
De Haan said cutting off the supply would likely raise gas prices in the U.S. in the short term.
But Cahill said the switch would be “manageable,” with the U.S. potentially turning to countries like Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia and Canada to replace the Russian oil.
Growing bipartisan support runs up against White House reluctance
Still, a slew of Democratic senators, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on Thursday threw their support behind cutting off Russian oil imports.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by moderate Democrat Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Republican Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced legislation Thursday that would declare a national emergency and direct President Joe Biden to impose a ban.
But Biden already has such authority.
And while the White House has not completely ruled out the possibility, it has expressed concern it could lead to higher energy prices for Americans who are already being hit at the gas pump by record-high inflation rates.
“The president’s objective has been to maximize impact on President Putin and Russia, while minimizing impact to us and our allies and partners,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday.
The group backing Manchin’s proposal is bipartisan. Nine Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors. And Democratic supporters span the caucus from traditionally moderate members like Sen. Jon Tester, of Montana, to more progressive members like Hawaii Sens. Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz, and Connecticut’s Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
“Putin has weaponized energy,” Tester said. “I don’t believe this country should be importing anything from Russia, but the fact of the matter is energy is something Putin depends upon for his finances, and he is depending on it to fight this war in Ukraine.”
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has offered a separate bill that would also ban Russian oil imports. In addition, his legislation would require a report identifying entities involved in the import of Russian crude oil and petroleum products into the U.S. — and impose sanctions on those entities based on the report’s findings.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the effort her stamp of approval Thursday.
“I’m all for that,” Pelosi told reporters. “Ban it. Ban the oil coming from Russia.”
Manchin said Americans should be willing to make a sacrifice.
“You talk about an inconvenience, can you imagine if you lived in Ukraine right now?” Manchin said. “If there was a poll being taken and they said, ‘Joe, would you pay 10 cents more a gallon to support the people of Ukraine and stop, basically, the support of Russia?’ I would gladly pay 10 cents more a gallon.”
Republicans call for new drilling on US public lands
Pelosi was clear that she did not back an increase on oil and gas drilling on federal land, which the Biden administration has restricted — and which Republicans want.
While the bipartisan bill makes no mention of domestic production, many Republican lawmakers — and some Democrats, including Manchin — see the two policies going hand in hand.
An increase in U.S. production would blunt rising oil prices and provide a global alternative to Russian oil, they argue.
“We must dramatically increase domestic production of energy to support the energy needs of American consumers without causing increased financial burden,” Manchin said in a statement Tuesday.
Increasing U.S. oil production is a controversial move. Many Democrats applauded steps taken by the administration for sidelining the Keystone XL pipeline project last year and taking steps to pare back production in favor of greener energy sources earlier this year.
But the White House says oil companies have access to plenty of places to drill, and the Biden administration supports investing in clean energy in the long term to prevent a reliance on foreign oil.
Cahill said there are signs U.S. producers are already reacting to demand that increased even before the war in Ukraine — and that most of the new drilling would take place on private land.
“This industry mostly takes its signals from Wall Street, and the market is going to take care of some of this on its own,” Cahill said. The White House lending its rhetorical support could help, though, he said.
Murkowski echoed that sentiment.
“If the president were to come before the American people and give a speech and say we in this country need to embrace the role that we can take on as a full energy producer,” she said, “I think that that would do as much to send a signal to help calm the markets to help address what we are seeing with the daily prices of fuel at the pump.”
ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.
A 34-year-old Massachusetts State Police trooper was killed in a crash with a tractor trailer on I-93 overnight after just under two years of working her “dream” job.
Trooper Tamar Bucci, of Woburn, was struck by a tanker truck around 11:45 p.m. Thursday as she tried to pull over to help a car in the breakdown lane on the northbound side of the highway in Stoneham. The truck was carrying a full load of approximately 10,000 gallons of gasoline, Massachusetts State Police said Friday.
“I can tell you that she will be sorely missed,” Colonel Christopher Mason said during a press conference Friday morning. “She always had a dream and aspiration to be a trooper. She worked very hard during the academy.”
The force of the impact pushed Bucci’s cruiser, a fully marked Ford interceptor SUV with blue lights activated, off of the roadway, authorities said. Two good Samaritans who were driving by stopped and pulled her from the heavily damaged cruiser.
A Stoneham police officer who came upon the scene performed emergency first aid, including CPR, until EMS arrived. The officer was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Bucci is survived by her parents, two sisters, stepbrother and stepsister. Mason, the Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, added that she is also survived by another family, the 2,000 plus men and women of the force. Bucci is the 22nd member of the Massachusetts State Police to die in the line of duty.
“The department is devastated by our loss,” Mason said. “Her death is a reminder of the dangers that troopers and police officers face each day in order to protect society. While we are heartbroken by this tragedy, we resolve to continue our mission to protect and serve by following the example set by Trooper Bucci. In her brief MSP career, she set an example for all of us to follow. Her life was cut too short, too soon.”
Bucci was assigned to the Medford Barracks last month. She graduated from the State Police Academy on May 6, 2020, the ceremony for which was held at Gillette Stadium.
Before joining the Massachusetts State Police, Bucci worked in the security department at Encore Boston Harbor and also worked as a personal trainer. She graduated from Middlesex Community College and Andover High School.
The driver of the truck, a Methuen man, was not injured. Police said he has been cooperative and was interviewed early Friday morning. The truck is owned by PJ Murphy Company. No charges have been filed at this time.
The woman who was in the disabled car that Trooper Bucci was trying to help was taken to an area hospital for evaluation. Police said she has minor injuries and is expected to recover.
It was not immediately clear if the disabled car was struck by the tractor trailer or the trooper’s vehicle. An investigation into the crash is ongoing.
There was an outpouring of support from local police departments and other public safety agencies on Twitter Friday, including the FBI.
“The men and women of FBI Boston offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Mass. State Police Trooper Tamar Bucci who was killed in the line of duty. It is a devastating loss and our hearts go out to them,” FBI Boston wrote.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Trooper Tamar Bucci and the Mass. State Police,” the Boston Fire Department said.
“The Methuen Police Department joins all of Law Enforcement in expressing our most heart felt condolences to the Mass. State Police and all of Trooper Tamar Bucci’s Family and Friends,” Methuen police wrote.
The scene was very active early Friday morning as crews worked to tow the vehicles from the scene. A portion of the highway was closed on the northbound side for some time, causing delays during the morning commute.
When Guy Reffitt returned home after Jan. 6 with his AR-15 rifle, pistol and clothes still reeking of bear spray, he was “proud and ecstatic,” Jackson Reffitt said. The father showed his family video of what he did, said he was armed at the Capitol, and called Jan. 6 a “preface” to what was coming next, his son said.
LVIV, Ukraine/KYIV/PARIS, March 4 (Reuters) – A huge blaze at the site of Europe’s biggest nuclear power station was extinguished on Friday, and officials said the plant in southeastern Ukraine was operating normally after it was seized by Russian forces in fighting that caused global alarm.
Separately, a presidential advisor said Ukraine had halted an advance on the city of Mykolayiv after local authorities said Russian troops had entered. If captured, the city of 500,000 people in southern Ukraine, where Russian forces have made the most progress so far, would be the biggest yet to fall.
Officials said the fire at the Zaporizhzhia compound was in a training centre, not at the plant itself. An official at Energoatom, the state enterprise that runs Ukraine’s four nuclear plants, said there was no further fighting, the fire was out, radiation was normal and Russian forces were in control.
“Personnel are on their working places providing normal operation of the station,” the official told Reuters in a message.
He said his organisation no longer had communication with the plant’s managers, control over the radiation situation there or oversight of potentially dangerous nuclear material in its six reactors and about 150 containers of spent fuel.
Russia’s defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said the plant was undamaged from what he believed was a Russian projectile. Only one reactor was working, at around 60% of capacity.
He described the situation as still tense, with the plant operating normally, adding: “There is nothing normal about this.”
A video from the plant verified by Reuters had earlier shown one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large incandescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.
The prospect that fighting could cause a potential nuclear disaster had set world financial markets tumbling.
Russia’s grip on a plant that provides more than a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity was a big development after eight days of war in which other Russian advances have been stalled by fierce resistance.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other Western officials said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels.
“Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians – Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address. In another address, he called on Russians to protest. read more
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
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Surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine March 4, 2022, in this screengrab from a video obtained from social media. Zaporizhzhya NPP via YouTube/via REUTERS
Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged Ukrainian cities, pounding them with artillery and air strikes. Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbour and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer the country of 44 million people.
Russia had already captured the defunct Chernobyl plant north of Kyiv, which spewed radioactive waste over much of Europe when it melted down in 1986. The Zaporizhzhia plant is a different and safer type.
FIGHTING RAGES, SANCTIONS MOUNT
In Russia itself, where Putin’s main opponents have largely been jailed or driven into exile, the war has been accompanied by a further crackdown on dissent. Authorities have banned reports that refer to the “special military operation” as a “war” or “invasion”. Anti-war demonstrations have been squelched with thousands of arrests.
On Friday, the authorities shut down foreign broadcasters including the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. Independent Russian broadcasters, TV Dozhd (Rain) and Ekho Moskvy radio, were shuttered on Thursday. The lower house of parliament introduced legislation on Friday to impose jail terms on people for spreading “fake” reports about the military. read more
Russia has been subjected to economic isolation never before visited on such a large economy, although a big exception has been carved out for its oil and gas exports. Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said more EU sanctions were coming.
“I suspect all Russian-flagged ships will be banned from entering EU ports. I also suspect that we’ll be banning other imports like steel, timber, aluminium and possibly coal as well,” Coveney told Irish national broadcaster RTE.
Only one Ukrainian city, the southern port of Kherson, has fallen to Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24.
Local authorities in the shipbuilding city of Mykolayiv told residents not to panic and Zelenskiy’s military adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said the Russian advance there had been halted.
“We can feel cautious optimism about the future prospects of the enemy offensive – I think that it will be stopped in other areas also,” he said
Loud explosions could be heard in Kyiv on Friday morning and an air raid siren blared. The southeastern port city of Mariupol has been encircled and subjected to intense strikes, Britain said in an intelligence update.
In the northeast, along another major axis of the Russian attack, the cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv have been under bombardment since the start of the invasion which worsened sharply this week, but defenders are holding out.
Kyiv, the capital of 3 million people, has been shelled but has so far been spared a major assault, with Russia’s main attack force stalled for days in a miles-long convoy on a highway to the north. In Washington, a U.S. defence official said Russians were still 25 km (16 miles) from Kyiv city centre.
On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine negotiators agreed at peace talks on the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape and to deliver medicines and food to areas of fighting.
LVIV, Ukraine, March 4 (Reuters) – Russian forces seized the largest nuclear power plant in Europe after a building at the complex was set ablaze during intense fighting with Ukrainian defenders, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday.
Fears of a potential nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant had spread alarm across world capitals, before authorities said the fire in a building identified as a training centre, had been extinguished.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels at the plant, which provides more than a fifth of Ukraine’s total electricity generation.
An official at the state enterprise that runs Ukraine’s four nuclear plants said there was no further fighting, the fire was out and Zaporizhzhia was operating normally
“(Nuclear power plant) personnel are on their working places providing normal operation of the station.”
Earlier, a video from the plant verified by Reuters showed one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large candescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.
“Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians – Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address.
Zelenskiy said Russian tanks had shot at the nuclear reactor plants, though there was no evidence cited that they had been hit.
The mayor of the nearby town of Energodar about 550 km (342 miles) southeast of Kyiv said fierce fighting and “continuous enemy shelling” had caused casualties in the area, without providing details.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Early reports of the fire and fighting at the power plant sent financial markets in Asia spiralling, with stocks tumbling and oil prices surging further.
“Markets are worried about nuclear fallout. The risk is that there is a miscalculation or over-reaction and the war prolongs,” said Vasu Menon, executive director of investment strategy at OCBC Bank.
Russia had already captured the defunct Chernobyl plant north of Kyiv, which spewed radioactive waste over much of Europe when it melted down in 1986. The Zaporizhzhia plant is a different and safer type, analysts said.
Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson both spoke with Zelenskiy to get an update on the situation at the plant.
“President Biden joined President Zelenskiy in urging Russia to cease its military activities in the area and allow firefighters and emergency responders to access the site,” the White House said.
Johnson said Russian forces must immediately quit their attack and agreed with Zelenskiy that a ceasefire was crucial.
“The prime minister said the reckless actions of President Putin could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe,” Downing Street said.
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Surveillance camera footage shows a flare landing at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during shelling in Enerhodar, Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine March 4, 2022, in this screengrab from a video obtained from social media. Zaporizhzhya NPP via YouTube/via REUTERS
Japan’s top government spokesman described the Russian attack on the plant as “barbaric and unacceptable”, and a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said his government called “on all sides to exercise restraint, avoid escalation and ensure the safety of relevant nuclear facilities.”
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said he was “deeply concerned” by the situation at the nuclear plant, and that Ukrainian authorities had assured the IAEA that “essential” equipment were unaffected.
FIGHTING RAGES, SANCTIONS MOUNT
On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine negotiators agreed to the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape and to deliver medicines and food to the areas where fighting was the fiercest.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said a temporary halt to fighting in select locations was also possible.
The negotiators will meet again next week, the Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted Podolyak as saying.
Only one Ukrainian city, the southern port of Kherson, has fallen to Russian forces since the invasion was launched on Feb. 24, but Russian forces continue to surround and attack other cities.
The southeastern port city of Mariupol has been encircled by Russian forces and subjected to intense strikes, Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday.
“Mariupol remains under Ukrainian control but has likely been encircled by Russian forces,” the Ministry of Defence said. “The city’s civilian infrastructure has been subjected to intense Russian strikes.”
The northeastern city of Kharkiv has been under attack since the start of the invasion, but defenders are holding out in the heavily shelled city. Putin called Russia’s actions in Ukraine a “special operation” that is not designed to occupy territory but to topple the democratically elected government, destroy its neighbour’s military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
Russia has denied targeting civilians. U.N. human rights office said on Thursday that it had confirmed 249 civilians have been killed and 553 wounded during the first week of the conflict.
While no major assault has been launched on Kyiv, the capital has been shelled, and Russian forces unleashed devastating firepower to break resistance in the outlying town of Borodyanka.
In Washington, a U.S. defence official said Russian troops were still 25 km (16 miles) from Kyiv city centre.
The United States and Britain announced sanctions on more Russian oligarchs on Thursday, following on from EU measures, as they ratcheted up the pressure on the Kremlin.
More companies including Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google, footwear giant Nike and Swedish home furnishing firm IKEA shut down or reduced operations in Russia as trade restrictions and supply constraints added to political pressure. read more
Russian human rights activist and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov called on Western countries to eject Russia from the global police agency Interpol, and impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“Russia should be thrown back into the Stone Age to make sure that the oil and gas industry and any other sensitive industries that are vital for survival of the regime cannot function without Western technological support,” Kasparov said.
Russian forces shelled and seized a nuclear power plant as they bombarded and besieged a swath of southern Ukrainian cities, seeking to sever access to the country’s crucial seacoasts even as the invaders appeared stalled in a bid to knock out Ukraine’s leadership by capturing or subduing the capital, Kyiv.
During an attack early Friday on the southern city of Enerhodar, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power complex, a fire broke out in one of the six reactors. Hours later, authorities reported that the blaze had been extinguished, radiation levels remained normal and the complex was in the hands of Russian forces — whom Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had beseeched to stop targeting the plant, for fear of a nuclear nightmare.
“Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops,” Zelensky said in an emotional video speech. “Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophe at a nuclear power station.”
Ukraine’s nuclear regulator said the agency’s staff was inspecting the compartment of Reactor No. 1 at the Zaporizhzhia plant for damage. The agency said on Facebook it was important that the plant maintain the capacity to cool nuclear fuel in order to avoid a disastrous meltdown.
International nuclear authorities expressed concern but not panic even as the fire triggered phone calls between Zelensky and President Biden and other world leaders.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine shuddered into a second week, the full extent of a European refugee crisis on a scale not seen since World War II was coming into focus. An estimated 1 million Ukrainians — half of them children — have sought refuge outside the country, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations report.
The total number of those displaced internally and externally could swell to a staggering 10 million, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Despite a tentative agreement Thursday by Ukrainian and Russian negotiators to set up safe corridors in some locales to allow humanitarian aid in and civilians out, the ferocity of the fighting has been escalating daily.
Russian forces unleashed a fresh barrage of artillery fire, rockets and air attacks Thursday on Mariupol, a strategic city of about 430,000 people in southeastern Ukraine, on the Sea of Azov near the Russian border, news reports said. Hundreds were feared dead in attacks that crumbled buildings and left civilians cowering in terror.
“We cannot count the number of victims there, but we believe at least hundreds of people are dead,” Mariupol’s deputy mayor, Serhiy Orlov, told the BBC. “We cannot go in to retrieve the bodies. My father lives there. I cannot reach him. I don’t know if he is alive or dead.”
The start of the onslaught against Mariupol coincided with Russia’s capture Wednesday of Kherson, at the mouth of the Dnieper near the Black Sea, which became the first major city to fall and indicated Russia’s intensifying attacks on civilians.
Three organizations with operations in California are helping people in eastern Ukraine, and so is the Red Cross. Here’s how you can contribute.
Invading troops have begun moving west from Kherson toward Mykolaiv, another major Black Sea port and shipbuilding center, and amphibious landing vessels were reported to be heading toward the historic seaside city of Odessa.
A spokesman for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which supplies about a quarter of the country’s power, told Ukrainian television that firefighters could not reach the complex because Russian troops were shooting at them.
He said that the fire was in a reactor that is under renovation and not operating, but that it contains nuclear fuel.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, tweeted: “If it blows up, it will be 10 times larger than Chornobyl! Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone!”
The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Twitter that Ukrainian regulators had reported normal radiation levels around the plant.
The U.S. Department of Energy activated its nuclear incident response team as a precaution.
The Russian advances in the south came as Russian and Ukrainian representatives agreed on a mechanism for establishing humanitarian corridors, which would be coupled with temporary local cease-fires.
But few are holding out hope that the negotiations will be able to halt the biggest ground war in Europe in more than 75 years. Putin demands that Ukraine demilitarize and declare neutrality, and more broadly, the Russian leader has made clear his wish to reestablish Russia’s sphere of influence across the former Eastern Bloc, rearranging Europe’s entire security architecture.
Some of those who have been in direct contact with Putin paint a dire picture of the Russian leader’s possible intentions in Ukraine.
After a 90-minute phone call Thursday between French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin, a senior French official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity offered a bleak assessment: “Without making a prediction, we should expect the worst is yet to come.”
Western allies continued to try to force Putin from his course with new punitive steps. The White House said Thursday that the U.S. would impose sanctions reaching into Putin’s inner circle, targeting eight members of Russia’s elite, including Putin’s official spokesman. The Biden administration will also place visa restrictions on 19 oligarchs and their family members.
Although Ukrainians have put up staunch resistance over eight days of fighting, reports on the ground were grim. Russian troops have now surrounded Mariupol on all sides and could capture the port at any time, Ukrainian officials acknowledged.
“Our internal forces are very brave, but we are surrounded by the Russian army,” Orlov, the deputy mayor, told CNN. In Washington, a senior Defense official told reporters that the Pentagon believes that 90% of the forces that Putin assembled for the invasion are now in Ukraine.
The capture of Mariupol would bridge the gap between territories held by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine and Russian soldiers in the southern peninsula of Crimea, which Moscow annexed by force in 2014.
Along with the seizure of other coastal cities, it would give Russia control over the rest of southern Ukraine, cutting off the country’s access to key shipping routes in the Black Sea and devastating Ukraine economically.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announces more sanctions against Russia and worships with Ukrainians in Washington.
The desperate conditions in Mariupol and elsewhere paint a dire picture for Ukraine of an overwhelmingly powerful military foe willing to launch more attacks on civilian targets, including schools and hospitals. A prosecutor for the International Criminal Court says senior Russian leaders are being investigated for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
Cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv have come under devastating fire as the Russian military attempts to regain the initiative after its initial assault failed to achieve a rapid victory. The Ukrainian State Emergency Service has said more than 2,000 civilians have been killed in the invasion.
Kyiv was hit by two massive explosions that lighted up the sky Wednesday evening and before dawn Thursday. One of the blasts damaged the central train station, a key transit point for thousands fleeing the capital, but packed trains were still running on Thursday, ferrying people away from danger.
But while the capital remains under heavy threat, a 40-mile-long column of Russian armored vehicles on Kyiv’s northern outskirts “is still stuck there,” U.S. and British defense officials said Thursday, amid intelligence that the convoy was experiencing fuel and supply shortages, together with sporadic attacks by Ukrainian regular and irregular forces.
Putin insisted that Russian forces were not targeting civilians. “Precision weapons are used to destroy exclusively military infrastructure,” he said, describing any reports otherwise as “elements of an anti-Russian disinformation campaign.”
The Ukrainian president continued to voice defiance.
“One week ago, at 4 a.m., Russia invaded our independent Ukraine, our land,” Zelensky said Thursday in the latest video address aimed at buoying his people and showing them he remains in place and in charge. “The first hours and days … were extremely difficult, but we were united and therefore strong, and therefore we withstood.”
Western governments, meanwhile, sought to bolster front-line states on Russia’s western flank.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was visiting Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia “to underscore our solidarity and determination to hold the Russian and Belarusian governments accountable for their brutal war against Ukraine,” he said in a departure statement Thursday.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, also visiting vulnerable Baltic states, did not mince words about what might lie ahead.
“What we’ve seen in Ukraine is beyond … anybody’s idea of what might happen,” Wallace said at a news conference in Estonia. “Not only has Russia illegally invaded Ukraine, it is now unleashing violence on civilian areas, bombardments and inflicting casualties on potentially thousands of civilians.”
Russia now appears to be targeting government buildings and residential apartments, killing civilians and stirring chaos.
But Wallace said most major population centers remain under the Ukrainian flag.
“They still have not taken control of a number of the big cities,” he said of Russian troops. “They might have entered them; in some cases, they’ve been repelled. But taking control of large cities is a completely different step, and they have not succeeded.”
In the face of international condemnation, including a U.N. General Assembly resolution Wednesday demanding a halt to Moscow’s aggression, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Thursday that the U.S. and its NATO allies were responsible for provoking the war.
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“They are listening to us, but they are not hearing us, and they’re trying to force upon us their own understanding of how Europe should live,” Lavrov said, comparing the U.S. to Napoleon and Hitler in its “goal to subjugate Europe.”
Russia is paying an increasing economic price for its war. The country’s central bank said the main stock exchange would remain closed for the fourth consecutive day Thursday, a move made to prevent a collapse of the Moscow Exchange.
Bulos reported from Kyiv, King from Washington and Pierson from Singapore. Times staff writers Henry Chu in London and Anumita Kaur, Tracy Wilkinson and Eli Stokols in Washington contributed to this report, as did the Associated Press.
Redding resident Sherri Papini, 39, a young mother whose apparent kidnapping and near-miraculous return became global news in 2016, was arrested Thursday on charges of making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer and engaging in mail fraud.
Prosecutors say she not only misled investigators and wasted untold law enforcement resources, but she also profited from about $30,000 of payments from the California Victim’s Compensation Board.
The sensational case captured global attention and took on racial overtones when Papini, who is white, told investigators her captors were two “Hispanic women” but failed to provide detailed identification of them despite claiming to have spent 22 days as their captive. Prosecutors now say the women were invented as part of Papini’s hoax, and that she was voluntarily in Costa Mesa, California, with an ex-boyfriend the entire time.
DNA evidence ultimately led to the ex-boyfriend and helped crack the five-year-old case, according to a 55-page criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Sherri Papini’s husband, Keith, maintained a visible presence during the time she was missing and, according to documents, sat with her for most of her interviews with investigators once she returned. In fact, the criminal complaint filed Thursday states that Keith Papini personally conducted the first interview with her immediately after she was found because she would not speak directly to law enforcement.
Asked if Keith Papini is suspected of any involvement, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Lauren Horwood said she is unable to make statements such as that. “What I can say is he’s not being charged,” she said.
The criminal complaint provides extensive details of the allegations against Sherri Papini, but does not allege criminal wrongdoing on anyone else’s part.
Papini was 34 when she went missing from Mountain Gate on Nov. 2, 2016. Authorities mobilized searches for her in Shasta County and California as well as in several other states.
On Nov. 24, Thanksgiving Day, Papini reappeared along a rural road in Yolo County near Woodland, bruised and bound by restraints, according to the county sheriff’s office. Papini had various bindings on her body and injuries including a brand on her right shoulder, according to authorities.
At the time, Papini told law enforcement officers and others that she had been abducted and held at gunpoint by two Hispanic women. She also provided a description of the alleged abductors to an FBI sketch artist. Based on her account, law enforcement agencies were on the lookout for women matching Papini’s description.
“For several months, and even years, Redding and the nearby community were on the lookout for two Hispanic women,” prosecutors said in the complaint. “Multiple tips were given to law enforcement by the community about suspicious-looking Hispanic women.”
The investigation eventually showed Sherri Papini’s account was fabricated and that she had voluntarily stayed with a former boyfriend in Costa Mesa, where she systematically had harmed herself to make her story convincing, authorities said. They said she enlisted his help inflicting some of the injuries — including branding her shoulder — but that much of the physical evidence of her ordeal was the direct result of Papini roughly cutting her own hair, slamming her head on the bathtub and bathroom floor, and refusing to eat enough food.
In the criminal complaint, Redding-based FBI agent Courtney Lantto said Sherri Papini had been in contact with her ex-boyfriend as early as December 2015 – nearly a year before her disappearance. They used pre-paid phones to communicate, according to the complaint, which says she eventually asked the ex-boyfriend, whose name is not given, to drive to Redding from Southern California and pick her up.
On the day the community believed she had disappeared in a terrifying abduction while out on a run, Sherri Papini actually met her ex-boyfriend exactly as she had arranged via text messages, Lantto said in the criminal complaint.
U.S. Attorney Phillip Talbert, FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Ragan and Shasta County Sheriff Michael L. Johnson announced Papini’s arrest.
Investigators for several years followed Sherri Papini’s account of the events down what they now say were dead ends. They concentrated their search for her abduction site in mountainous areas because, the complaint says, she told them it was always cold and rained nearly every night. They brought her photos of women who might match the racial, height and hair characteristics she alleged. They disseminated “wanted” posters worldwide with an FBI sketch artist’s attempt to capture her description — including both women wearing bandanas.
Other leads, including two other men whose contact information investigators say was found in Papini’s phone under women’s names, yielded nothing of value. One man, from Michigan, had reportedly planned to meet Sherri Papini on a visit to California just before her disappearance. But, investigators said, that meeting never happened.
The case finally broke in 2020, according to the complaint. When Papini was hospitalized in Woodland upon her return, investigators collected male DNA from her underwear and sweatpants that did not match Keith Papini’s.
On March 19, 2020, the California Department of Justice’s Familial Search Committee voted to release to investigators the results of a DNA search using that sample and matching those on file, according to the complaint.
The DNA came back as a “familial match” to a man who is referred to as “Person 2” in the complaint, and who had two living biological sons. One of them, the ex-boyfriend, caught their attention, according to the complaint, because he had shared a joint AOL email account with Sherri Papini and had conducted financial transactions with her.
In June 2020, FBI agents collected a discarded bottle of Honest Honey Green Tea from the ex-boyfriend’s trash in Costa Mesa, the complaint said. The DNA at the mouth of the bottle, investigators said, was a match. That August, the investigators said they interviewed the ex-boyfriend and he provided extensive details that fit the physical evidence in the case and exposed Sherri Papini’s story as a fabrication, according to the complaint.
During an interview conducted by a federal agent and a Shasta County Sheriff’s Office detective in August 2020, Papini was warned that it was a crime to lie to federal agents, the news release said.
By this time, investigators were able to show Papini pictures of the room where the ex-boyfriend had told them she had stayed, as well as other details of the evidence they had gathered. Instead of retracting her kidnapping story, Papini continued to make false statements about her purported abductors, according to the news release Thursday.
In addition, investigators said Papini applied to the California Victim’s Compensation Board for victim assistance money based on her kidnapping story. From 2017 through 2021, Papini collected approximately 35 payments totaling over $30,000, including for visits to her therapist and for the ambulance that transported her to the hospital after her return, the news release said.
“When a young mother went missing in broad daylight, a community was filled with fear and concern,” said U.S. Attorney Talbert.
Ultimately, Talbert said, the investigation revealed that there was no kidnapping. All the time and resources “that could have been used to investigate actual crime, protect the community, and provide resources to victims were wasted based on the defendant’s conduct,” said Talbert.
“The 22-day search for Sherri Papini and subsequent five-year search into who reportedly abducted her was not only taxing on public resources, but caused the general public to be fearful of their own safety, a fear that they should not have had to endure,” Shasta County Sheriff Michael L. Johnson said.
If convicted of making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer, Papini faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
If convicted of mail fraud, she faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Michele Chandler covers city government and housing issues for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Follow her on Twitter at @MChandler_RS, call her at 530-225-8344 or email her at michele.chandler@redding.com. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
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