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BRUSSELS — With anxiety mounting about the dangers to Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by the invading Russian Army, there finally seems to be some movement to get international inspectors into the facility to verify its safe operation.
In a conversation late Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia “had reconsidered” its insistence that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first travel through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to the French presidency.
The Russian presidency was less explicit, stating that “both leaders noted the importance of sending an I.A.E.A. mission to the power plant as soon as possible” and that Russia had “confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the agency’s inspectors.”
The two presidents will speak again about such a mission “in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission,” the French said.
The I.A.E.A. — the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and monitoring agency — has met with several obstacles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to get into the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, since at least June.
Ukraine objected to the idea that the inspectors would enter through Russian-occupied territory, an option that would seem to underscore Russian control of the plant, which provides at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations had significant security concerns about having inspectors travel through the front lines of this bitter war, with so much shelling.
As Russia and Ukraine blame each other for bringing the possibility of nuclear catastrophe to the plant through the artillery war — part of what a senior Western official on Friday called “the information war” — pressure has grown on Moscow to relent about how the inspectors might arrive.
That pressure has also come from Turkey, which has tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, as it did in the recent deal to free grain shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports amid a Russian blockade, and from the United Nations itself.
When António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general, visited Ukraine this past week along with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to discuss grain shipments, the U.N. leader also urged quick movement to try to keep the Zaporizhzhia plant safe.
Mr. Guterres warned Russia not to disconnect the facility from the Ukrainian grid, as Kyiv says Russia intends to do, in order to switch the supply into the Russian grid. Such a move could interrupt the vital cooling of the reactors and cut electricity to millions of Ukrainians.
Western officials consider the main danger of a nuclear accident coming less from a shell hitting one of the containment buildings around the six light-water nuclear reactors, which are constructed to withstand a 9/11-like impact of an airliner, than from an interruption in electricity. Should that happen, and should the plant’s generators fail or be damaged, then a meltdown could occur.
The main concern in that respect, a senior Western official said on Friday, would be if the plant suffered a loss of cooling due to the loss of backup electricity, should Russia take it off the Ukrainian grid and should backup generators fail.
There is also worry that a shell could hit one of the ponds that store spent nuclear fuel, but that would have a more minor and localized effect.
Russia has rejected the plea of Mr. Guterres to demilitarize the area around the plant.
On Friday, the I.A.E.A.’s director general, Rafael M. Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the I.A.E.A.’s aim to send a mission” to Zaporizhzhia.
The Russian ambassador to the agency has suggested that such a mission could take place in early September. But even if inspectors can verify the safety of the plant at the time, the dangers will inevitably persist as the artillery war continues.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/21/world/ukraine-russia-news-war
Though the majority of those charged are facing misdemeanor charges with sentences that are likely to run their course before Trump could potentially reclaim the Oval Office, hundreds of those facing conspiracy, obstruction and assault charges could receive sentences that land them in prison for years.
Trump’s hint that he may pardon people his supporters claim have been treated “unfairly” could become a calculus in their decisions to accept plea deals or enter into negotiations with prosecutors. Some of those facing the most serious charges grumbled about Trump’s inaction in his final days in office — thoughts captured in private messages obtained by the Justice Department — even as he pardoned dozens of other political allies.
“We are now and always have been on our own. So glad he was able to pardon a bunch of degenerates as his last move and shit on us on the way out,” Proud Boys leader Ethan Nordean said in one message prosecutors included in a May 2021 court filing. “Fuck you trump you left us on [t]he battle field bloody and alone.”
Nordean has been held in jail for nearly a year and is scheduled to go to trial in May on conspiracy and obstruction charges, along with at least three other Proud Boys leaders.
It’s unclear if Trump’s suggestion also included those who have been targeted by the Jan. 6 select committee and have since asserted their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination — including figures like attorney John Eastman, who helped Trump devise a plan to subvert the election and pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to carry it out. It could also include figures like Steve Bannon, who has been charged with criminal contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the select panel, and former chief of staff Mark Meadows, who has been referred for prosecution by the House for refusing a deposition.
But Trump’s remarks about fair treatment appear to align with supporters who have decried the prosecution of those who stormed and breached the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Of the defendants sentenced so far, only three received a jail term that would extend past Biden’s first term: Robert Palmer, who assaulted police officers in the Capitol’s lower west terrace tunnel; Scott Fairlamb, who hit an officer in the head outside the Capitol; and Jacob Chansley, who wielded a spear and egged on early waves of rioters as he charged into the Senate chamber and took the dais where Pence had sat just minutes earlier. Palmer was sentenced last month to 63 months in prison, while Fairlamb and Chansley each received a 41-month sentence in November.
Dozens of others facing assault charges are still awaiting trial or plea agreements that could result in sentences far beyond the next inauguration. They include the 11 Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy for allegedly preparing a violent attempt to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Biden. They also include members of the Proud Boys leadership, like Nordean.
Authorities also continue to make new Jan. 6-related arrests on a a nearly daily basis, estimating that between 2,000 and 2,500 people breached the Capitol that day — meaning that nearly two-thirds of potential cases have not even begun. Prosecutors estimate that about 1,000 police assaults occurred at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Trump’s comments Saturday appeared to align with complaints by allies who have claimed that Jan. 6 defendants in pretrial detention are being treated more harshly than others held in the D.C. jail. Though the broader D.C. facility was recently ripped by U.S. Marshals Service inspectors for squalid conditions, the assessment found that the wing housing Jan. 6 detainees had fared better in the review. In addition, Jan. 6 defendants have cited policies restricting access to various services for inmates unvaccinated against Covid as evidence of mistreatment — a charge jail officials reject and say is applied uniformly against all held in the facility.
Many of the cases for those facing lengthier jail terms are set to go to trial in the spring but have seen the dates slip repeatedly amid ongoing Covid restrictions in federal courthouses as well as challenges prosecutors have faced building a system to share massive troves of evidence with defendants and their attorneys.
Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/30/trump-pardon-jan6-defendants-00003450