KYIV: Russia unleashed a missile barrage across Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing shutdowns of nuclear power plants and killing at least six civilians as Moscow pursued a campaign to pitch Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in.
All of the Kyiv capital region, where over three million people live, lost electricity and running water, Kyiv’s governor said, as were many other regions where emergency blackouts were necessary to help conserve energy and carry out repairs.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was expected to brief a special session of the UN Security Council shortly by video link about Russia’s assault on civilian infrastructure.
“The murder of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are acts of terror,” Zelensky said in a tweet. “Ukraine will continue to demand a decisive response from the world to these crimes.”
Officials across the border in Moldova said electricity was also lost to more than half of their country, the first time a neighboring state has reported such extensive damage from the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia’s invasion nine months ago.
Blackouts forced the shutdown of reactors at Ukraine’s Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the south and the Rivne and Khmelnitskyi plants in the west, all in government-held territory, the state-run nuclear energy firm Energoatom said.
“Currently, they (power units) work in project mode, without generation into the domestic energy system,” Energoatom said.
Ukraine’s largest nuclear complex, at Zaporizhzhia near the front lines in the south, is Russian-controlled and was previously switched off because of shelling that both sides blame on each other.
SIRENS, EXPLOSIONS, DARKNESS
Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine in a nationwide alert.
Explosions reverberated throughout Kyiv on Wednesday afternoon as Russian missiles bore down and Ukrainian air defense rockets were fired in efforts to intercept them.
Four civilians had been killed and 34 injured, five of them children, in Kyiv, regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba said in a statement posted on Telegram. Ukraine’s defense ministry said two people were killed by missile strikes elsewhere.
“Our little one was sleeping. Two years old. She was sleeping, she got covered. She is alive, thanks be to God,” said Fyodr, a Kyiv resident walking away from a smoldering apartment building that was hit in Kyiv, dragging a suitcase.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Wednesday evening at least 80 percent of people in the capital remained without power and water, but Kuleba said repair crews were working hard and “electricity will begin to appear in the coming hours. Don’t panic!“
By 6 p.m., electricity in half of the western city of Lviv had been restored following repairs, its mayor said.
Most thermal and hydro-electric power plants were forced to shut down as well, Ukraine’s energy ministry said earlier. As a result, it said, the great majority of electricity consumers in areas of the country under Ukrainian control were cut off.
Earlier, Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight, killing a baby, the regional governor said on the Telegram messaging service.
Blasts were also reported in other cities, where further information about casualties was not immediately available.
Ukraine’s top military commander, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, said air defenses had shot down 51 of 67 Russian cruise missiles launched, including 20 of the 30 that targeted Kyiv.
Since October, Russia has acknowledged targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy grid far from front lines with long-range missiles and drones as a Ukrainian counter-offensive has wrested back territory from Russian occupiers in the east and south.
Moscow says the aim of its missile strikes is to weaken Kyiv’s ability to fight and push it to negotiate; Ukraine says the attacks on infrastructure amount to war crimes, deliberately intended to harm civilians to break the national will.
That will not happen, Zelensky vowed in an earlier video address posted on the Telegram messaging app.
“We’ll renew everything and get through all of this because we are an unbreakable people,” he said.
SPILLOVER BLACKOUT IN MOLDOVA
Moldova, like Ukraine a former Soviet republic once dominated by Moscow but now pro-Western, has long worried about the prospect of fighting spreading across its borders.
“Massive blackout in Moldova after today’s Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure,” Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spinu said on Twitter, adding the grid operator was trying to reconnect “more than 50 percent of the country to electricity.”
With the first snow of Ukraine’s generally frigid winter falling, authorities worry about the impact of power cuts affecting millions of people.
Zelensky on Tuesday announced special “invincibility centers” would be set up around Ukraine to provide electricity, heat, water, Internet, mobile phone links and a pharmacy, free of charge and around the clock.
In addition, Europe’s biggest cities will donate power generators and transformers to help Ukrainians get through the harsh winter ahead.
A series of Russian battlefield setbacks in the east and south included a Russian retreat earlier this month from the key southern city of Kherson to the east bank of the Dnipro River that bisects the country.
Ground battles continue to rage in the east, where Russia is pressing an offensive along a stretch of front line west of the city of Donetsk, which has been held by its proxies since 2014.
For their part, Ukrainian forces killed about 50 Russian soldiers in an attack on an ammunition depot in the eastern Luhansk region, and up to 15 Russians in a separate attack in the Zaporizhzhia region, Kyiv’s military said on Wednesday.
No further details were given and Reuters was unable to independently verify the reports.
Moscow says it is carrying out a “special military operation” to protect Russian speakers in what President Vladimir Putin calls an artificial state carved from Russia. Ukraine and the West call the invasion an unprovoked land grab.
Western responses have included billions of dollars worth of financial aid and state-of-the-art military hardware for Kyiv and waves of punitive sanctions on Russia.
Russian missile barrage forces Ukraine to shut nuclear power plants
https://arab.news/nbk5q
Russian missile barrage forces Ukraine to shut nuclear power plants
- All of the Kyiv capital region, where over three million people live, lost electricity and running water
- “The murder of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure are acts of terror,” Zelensky said in a tweet
EU leaders back new Iran sanctions after attack on Israel
- EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel’s security
BRUSSELS: European Union leaders decided on Wednesday to step up sanctions against Iran after Tehran’s missile and drone attack on Israel left world powers scrambling to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East.
The summit in Brussels is the first meeting of the EU’s 27 national leaders since Saturday’s attack, more than six months into the war between Israel and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israel has signalled that it will retaliate but has not said how. EU leaders condemned the Iranian attack, reaffirmed their commitment to Israel’s security and called on all sides to prevent more tensions, including in Lebanon.
“The European Union will take further restrictive measures against Iran, notably in relation to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and missiles,” the leaders said in a joint statement.
Italy PM Meloni visits Tunisia for migration talks
- Tunisia is a major transit point for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants hoping to reach Europe every year
TUNIS: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with officials in Tunis Wednesday to discuss what she called a “new approach” to irregular migration and economic cooperation with Tunisia.
The hard-right leader’s visit, the fourth in less than a year to the north African country, came as her government pledged to curb irregular migrant arrivals in Italy.
Meloni met with President Kais Saied, who said after the meeting Tunisia must not become “a country of transit or settlement” for migrants from other African countries, according to a statement from his office.
In a video address released after her discussions with Saied, Meloni also said “Tunisia cannot be a country of arrival for migrants” from the rest of Africa.
She vowed to “involve international organizations to work on repatriations” of migrants while insisting on more European investment in African nations.
Ahead of the visit, an Italian official had told AFP that “cooperation on migration remains a central aspect of the relationship between Italy and Tunisia.”
“It remains essential that Tunisian authorities continue their action to combat human trafficking and contain illegal departures,” the official added.
Meloni’s latest visit to Tunisia came as part of her so-called Mattei Plan, a program aiming to posit Italy as a key bridge between Africa and Europe.
She said the fight against irregular migration required development for African countries and investments.
“Italy will continue to try to advance this new approach which it is promoting at a European level,” she said.
But critics say the plan would funnel energy north while exchanging investment in the south for deals aimed at curbing migration.
Three agreements were signed Wednesday: a 50-million-euro ($53-million) aid for energy projects, credit for small- and medium-sized businesses, and a university cooperation agreement.
Meloni also said Italy would encourage regular migration by granting 12,000 residence permits to Tunisians trained in specific fields.
Tunisia is a major transit point for thousands of sub-Saharan migrants hoping to reach Europe every year, with Italy as a frontline for their arrivals.
Almost 70,000 migrants were intercepted trying to cross the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy last year, according to Tunisian authorities.
Meloni visited Tunisia three times over the summer of 2023, twice with the European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen.
The visits resulted in the European Union’s signing of an agreement in July to provide financial aid to debt-ridden Tunisia in return for its commitment to curb migrant departures.
The agreement provided 105 million euros to curb irregular migration — which the EU has started paying — added to 150 million euros in budgetary support.
European Parliament lawmakers criticized the agreement, citing a deterioration of human rights and freedoms in the north African country.
They also criticized Saied’s increasing authoritarian rule after his sweeping power grab in 2021.
Last month, the EU signed a similar deal with Egypt worth 7.4 billion euros on energy and migration.
Google employees arrested after protesting against $1bn contract with Israel
- 'Google workers do not want their labor to power Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza,' No Tech For Apartheid group said
LONDON: Several Google employees were arrested on Tuesday for taking part in a 10-hour sit-in at the company’s offices in New York and California.
The protest, organized by members of the No Tech For Apartheid movement, was meant as a challenge to the tech giant’s involvement with the Israeli government. It centered on a $1 billion cloud computing contract between Google, Amazon and the Israeli government and military, known as Project Nimbus.
The project involves creating a secure Google cloud setup in Israel to facilitate data analysis, AI training and other computing services, Time magazine reported.
According to leaked documents reported by American news organization Intercept in 2022, the project includes advanced features like AI-enabled facial detection and automated image categorization.
During the sit-in, a livestreamed video captured a security worker telling protesters at Google’s California office that they were on administrative leave and cautioned them about trespassing.
Social media videos showed police removing nine protesters from the premises. Similar actions were recorded at the company’s New York office.
A statement from the No Tech For Apartheid group said: “Google workers do not want their labor to power Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The time is now to rise up against Project Nimbus, in support of Palestinian liberation and join calls to end the Israeli occupation.”
Last month, a Google employee from the group interrupted a talk by the company’s Israel chief, accusing the company of “powering genocide.” He was later fired.
A Google spokesman told the Telegraph: “These protests were part of a longstanding campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work at Google. A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a couple of our locations.
“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies and we will investigate and take action.
“These employees were put on administrative leave and their access to our systems was cut. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety.”
Man guilty of attacks near UK mosques given hospital order
- Abbkr has paranoid schizophrenia and believed he was controlled by people possessed by evil spirits
LONDON: A man convicted of attempted murder after deliberately setting fire to two elderly men shortly after they left mosques in the UK was on Wednesday handed an indefinite hospital order.
Mohammed Abbkr, from Edgbaston in Birmingham, central England, deliberately set fire to Hashi Odowa, 82, and Mohammed Rayaz, 70, in February and March last year.
Abbkr, originally from Sudan, was convicted of two counts of attempted murder last year at Birmingham Crown Court in central England.
Judge Melbourne Inman told Abbkr, who has paranoid schizophrenia and believed he was controlled by people possessed by evil spirits: “You threw petrol over your victims and then set them alight — the attacks were horrific.”
“The two victims in this case were, on any rational view, chosen at random,” the judge told Abbkr, who watched the proceedings by video-link from Ashworth high security hospital in northwest England.
“You, however, genuinely believed each of them was one of those trying to take control of you.
“I am wholly satisfied that you committed both of these offenses at a time when you were suffering a severe mental illness.”
Abbkr sprayed petrol on the two men outside or near mosques they had attended and then set them alight. The attacks took place in west London on February 27 and Birmingham on March 20.
Odowa, who was attacked in London, was treated for severe burns to his face and arms. The Birmingham attack left Rayaz hospitalized with severe injuries.
70 killed as Afghanistan hit by heavy rains
- Rains between Saturday and Wednesday triggered flash floods in most Afghanistan provinces
- Fifty-six people injured, over 2,600 houses have been damaged or destroyed, says Afghan official
KABUL: Around 70 people have been killed by heavy rains lashing Afghanistan over the past five days, the government’s disaster management department said Wednesday.
Afghanistan was parched by an unusually dry winter which desiccated the earth, exacerbating flash-flooding caused by spring downpours in most provinces.
Disaster management spokesman Janan Sayeq said “approximately 70 people lost their lives” as a result of rains between Saturday and Wednesday.
Fifty-six others have been injured, he said, while more than 2,600 houses have been damaged or destroyed and 95,000 acres of farmland wiped away.
Giving a smaller death toll last week, Sayeq said most fatalities at that point had been caused by roof collapses resulting from the deluges.
Neighbouring Pakistan has also been hammered by spring downpours, with 65 people killed in storm-related incidents as rain falls at nearly twice the historical average rate.
The United Nations last year warned that “Afghanistan is experiencing major swings in extreme weather conditions.”
After four decades of war the country ranks among the nations least prepared to face extreme weather events, which scientists say are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.
At least 25 people were killed in a landslide after massive snowfall in eastern Afghanistan in February, while around 60 were killed in a three-week spate of precipitation ending in March.