KYIV, Ukraine — European officials are scrambling to help Ukraine stay warm and keep functioning through the bitter winter months, pledging Friday to send more support that will mitigate the Russian military’s efforts to turn off the heat and lights.
Nine months after Russia invaded its neighbor, the Kremlin’s forces have zeroed in on Ukraine’s power grid and other critical civilian infrastructure in a bid to tighten the screw on Kyiv. Officials estimate that around 50% of Ukraine’s energy facilities have been damaged in the recent strikes.
France is sending 100 high-powered generators to Ukraine to help people get through the coming months, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Friday.
She said Russia is “weaponizing” winter and plunging Ukraine’s civilian population into hardship.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, arriving Friday in Kyiv for an unannounced visit, said a promised air-defense package, which Britain valued at 50 million pounds ($60 million), would help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s bombardments.
“Words are not enough. Words won’t keep the lights on this winter. Words won’t defend against Russian missiles,” Cleverly said in a tweet about the military aid.
The package includes radar and other technology to counter the Iran-supplied exploding drones that Russia has used against Ukrainian targets, especially the power grid. It comes on top of a delivery of more than 1,000 anti-air missiles that Britain announced earlier this month.
“As winter sets in, Russia is continuing to try and break Ukrainian resolve through its brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Cleverly said.
His visit came a day after European officials launched a scheme called “Generators of Hope,” which calls on more than 200 cities across the continent to donate power generators and electricity transformers.
The generators are intended to help keep essential Ukrainian facilities running, providing power to hospitals, schools and water pumping stations, among other infrastructure.
Generators may provide only a tiny amount of the energy that Ukraine will need during the cold and dark winter months.
But the comfort and relief they provide is already evident, as winter begins in earnest and power outages occur regularly. The whine and rumble of generators is becoming commonplace, allowing stores that have them to stay open and Ukraine’s ubiquitous coffee shops to keep serving hot drinks that maintain a semblance of normality.
Ukrainian authorities are opening thousands of so-called “points of invincibility” — heated and powered spaces offering hot meals, electricity and internet connections. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said late Thursday that almost 4,400 such spaces have opened across most of the country.
He scoffed at Moscow’s attempts to intimidate Ukrainian civilians, saying that was the Russian military’s only option after a string of battlefield setbacks. “Either energy terror, or artillery terror, or missile terror — that’s all that Russia has dwindled to under its current leaders,” Zelenskyy said.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials and energy workers continued their push to restore supplies after a nationwide barrage Wednesday left tens of millions without power and water.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday morning that heating was back on in a third of the capital’s households, but that half of its population still lacked electricity.
Writing on Telegram, Klitschko added that authorities hoped to provide all consumers in Kyiv with electricity for a period of three hours on Friday, following a pre-set schedule.
As of Friday morning in Kharkiv, all residents of Ukraine’s second-largest city had had their electricity supplies restored, but more than 100,000 in the outlying region continued to see interruptions, the regional governor said.
In the south, authorities in the city of Mykolayiv said that running water was set to start flowing again after supplies were cut off by Russian strikes on Thursday.
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BERLIN — Europe should be able to cope with the natural gas supply crunch in the coming months thanks to considerable reserves although the continent could face a bigger energy crisis next winter, the head of the International Energy Agency said Thursday.
Fatih Birol said that, barring unforeseen events, “Europe will go through this winter with some economic and social headaches, bruises here and there” as a result of efforts to wean itself off Russian gas and the wider increase in energy costs resulting from the war in Ukraine.
“Next winter will be more difficult than this winter” he said.
Birol cited the fact that Russian gas supplies to Europe may end completely next year, while China’s demand for liquefied natural gas looks set to rebound as its economy recovers from the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the IEA projects new gas capacity coming online in 2023 to be the lowest in two decades, he said.
“(This) is the reason Europe needs to prepare today for next year,” Birol said, adding that solidarity among European nations was key.
Speaking at an energy symposium in Berlin hosted by the German government, the IEA chief said Russia can also expect to feel some costly effects of its falling out with European energy buyers over Ukraine.
With 75% of Russia’s gas exports and 55% of its oil going to Europe before the war, Moscow needs to find new markets for its output, he said.
Birol called it “completely wrong” to assume Russia will simply deliver to Asia, noting that pipelines through Siberia would take a decade to build and oil tankers need ten-times longer to reach clients in the East than in Europe.
Additionally, the departure of specialized oil and gas technology companies from Russia due to the sanctions means production at challenging extraction sites is likely to fall.
“Russia is set to lose the energy battle big time,” Birol said, adding that the IEA has calculated Moscow will lose about $1 trillion in revenue by 2030 because of its war in Ukraine.
While noting that the energy crisis also has severe impacts on developing nations, Birol said it would help speed up the transition to alternatives to fossil fuels.
“When I look at the (efforts to ensure) energy security, climate commitments and industrial policy drivers, I am optimistic that the current energy crisis will be a turning point in the history of energy policy making,” he said.
Still, this will require a five-fold increase in clean energy investments compared to today, said Birol.
WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s government says an anti-missile system which Germany offered to send to Poland should instead go to Ukraine, a proposal that is a likely non-starter for Berlin because it would significantly ratchet up NATO involvement in Ukraine.
Poland’s surprising response to Berlin’s offer was welcomed by Ukraine, which is desperate to protect its airspace as barrage upon barrage of Russian missiles have knocked out power across the country.
But Germany’s Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht stressed that use of NATO defense systems outside its territory needs to be agreed by all member states.
“It is important to us that Poland can rely on allies to stand by each other, even in difficult times, and especially Poland in its exposed position,” Lambrecht told reporters in Berlin.
“That’s why we have offered to support air policing and Patriots, but these Patriots are part of an integrated air defense of NATO, that is, they are intended for NATO territory,” the minister said. “If they are used outside the NATO area, then it has to be agreed with NATO and with the allies beforehand.”
In Poland, critics of the populist ruling party accused it of sacrificing the country’s security with a war next door in Ukraine for the sake of a domestic political struggle which exploits anti-German sentiment for short-term gain.
The Rzeczpospolita daily called the new proposal by Poland’s leaders “shocking,” arguing that it would require sending German soldiers operating the system to Ukraine, and “that, in turn, would involve NATO in a direct clash with Russia, something the alliance has been trying to avoid from the beginning.”
“This proposal affects Poland’s credibility and, worst of all, its security. The Germans get a clear signal that we do not want their help, so the defense potential of the Polish sky will be lower,” deputy editor Michal Szuldrzynski wrote. “In the worst war in Europe since 1945, this is an unforgivable mistake.”
Poland’s populist ruling party, facing elections next fall with its popularity dented by 18% inflation, has been ratcheting up its anti-German messaging, long a staple of the party’s campaign rhetoric. Party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski has also been trying to link his domestic opponents, particularly Donald Tusk, a former European Union leader, to Germany, saying Sunday that if Tusk’s party wins next year, Poland would find itself “under the German boot.”
When Germany recently offered Warsaw Eurofighter planes and Patriot air defense missile batteries, Poland’s Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak initially said it was an offer he would accept with “satisfaction.” The offer came after two men were killed when an apparently stray Ukrainian defense projectile fell in Poland near the border with Ukraine on Nov. 15.
But Poland’s tune changed after Kaczynski gave an interview to the state news agency PAP on Wednesday, saying that the offer is “interesting,” but that “it would be best for Poland’s security if Germany handed the equipment to the Ukrainians.”
Since then, both Blaszczak and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki have repeated the position of Kaczynski, the country’s most powerful leader.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, NATO beefed up its defenses along its eastern flank, including Poland, while Warsaw has worked to strengthen the nation’s own military with massive armaments purchases.
NATO deployed U.S. Patriot batteries to Poland, and German Patriot batteries to Slovakia, as well as a French equivalent system to Romania.
NATO’s policy is to not get directly involved in the war and to deploy the batteries only to protect member countries.
Tapping into anti-German feelings has long been a political strategy to win votes in Poland. Older Poles still carry the trauma of the atrocities inflicted on Poland by Germany during World War II. With the election campaigning underway, Poland has been demanding $1.3 trillion in wartime reparations from Germany — a bill Berlin says it won’t pay.
Kaczynski also blames Germany for supporting EU efforts to defend the rule of law in Poland and reverse changes to the judiciary, by withholding funding.
Meanwhile, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created new strains. Poland was long a critic of Germany’s gas deals with Russia and has also been critical of Berlin’s initial hesitancy to arm Ukraine.
In Poland, some critics pointed out that the government was not only refusing higher military protection but also turning its back on critical EU funding, billions of euros that have been held up by the government’s refusal to follow EU guidelines on safeguarding the independence of judges.
Marcin Kierwinski of the opposition Civic Platform party said Kaczynski “has gone mad” for “rejecting” the Patriot missiles and EU funding “during war and crisis.”
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Associated Press writers Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.
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BRUSSELS — On winter’s doorstep, European Union nations have not been able to surmount bitter disagreements as they struggle to effectively shield 450 million citizens from massive increases in their natural gas bills as cold weather sets in.
An emergency meeting of energy ministers Thursday only shows how the energy crisis tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine has divided the 27-nation bloc in almost irreconcilable blocs.
A massive August spike in natural gas prices stunned all but the wealthiest in the EU, forcing the bloc to look for a cap to contain volatile prices that are fueling inflation. Following several delays, energy ministers are back trying to break a deadlock between nations that are demanding cheaper gas to ease household bills — including Greece, Spain, Belgium, France and Poland — and those like Germany and the Netherlands that are insisting a price cap could cut supplies.
A solution was nowhere near the horizon — to the frustration of many.
“It’s already minus 10 (Celsius) in Poland,” said the nation’s energy minister, Anna Moskwa. “It’s winter now.”
Natural gas and electricity prices have soared as Moscow has slashed gas supplies to Europe used for heating, electricity and industrial processes. European officials have accused Russia of energy warfare to punish EU countries for supporting Ukraine.
So finding a deal is not only about providing warmth to citizens but also about showing a united front to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Talks have dragged on for months and even if a summit of EU leaders proclaimed some sort of breakthrough last month, nothing has been visible on the ground. Nations had been waiting for a proposal from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to set a threshold for a price cap, and when it came Tuesday, there was dismay and accusations it could never work.
The commission set a threshold for a “safety price ceiling” to kick in if prices exceed 275 euros per megawatt hour for two weeks and if they are 58 euros higher than the price for liquefied natural gas on world markets.
In political language, it means that such a system might not even have averted hikes as high as in August.
“Setting a ceiling at 275 euros is not actually a ceiling,” said Greek Energy Minister Konstantinos Skrekas, who called for a cap that could go as low as 150 euros.
“We are losing valuable time without results,” he added.
In comparison, the price stood at 125 euros per megawatt-hour on Europe’s TTF benchmark Thursday. Since the price has fallen since the summertime peaks, diplomats have said the urgency has abated somewhat, even though it could pick up quickly again if the weather is colder than normal and supplies get tight.
Some 15 nations are united around these views, but Germany and the Netherlands lead another group wanting to ensure that gas supply ships would not bypass Europe because they could get better prices elsewhere.
“Security of supply is paramount. Europe still has to be an attractive gas market,” Estonian Economy Minister Riina Sikkut said.
No decisive breakthrough was expected at Thursday’s meeting.
Czech Industry Minister Jozef Síkela, who chaired the emergency meeting, said he was well aware of the “emotional reactions” the commission proposal had sparked and predicted that talks would be “rather spicy.”
As a result of trade disruptions tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine, EU nations have reduced the overall share of Russian natural gas imports to the EU from 40% before the invasion to around 7%. And gas storage has already far exceeded targets and stand nearly at capacity.
The EU has relied on increased imports of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, including from the United States, to help address the fall in Russian supplies.
Nine months after invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is beginning to fracture the West.
Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.
“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO.
The explosive comments — backed in public and private by officials, diplomats and ministers elsewhere — follow mounting anger in Europe over American subsidies that threaten to wreck European industry. The Kremlin is likely to welcome the poisoning of the atmosphere among Western allies.
“We are really at a historic juncture,” the senior EU official said, arguing that the double hit of trade disruption from U.S. subsidies and high energy prices risks turning public opinion against both the war effort and the transatlantic alliance. “America needs to realize that public opinion is shifting in many EU countries.”
The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell called on Washington to respond to European concerns. “Americans — our friends — take decisions which have an economic impact on us,” he said in an interview with POLITICO.
The biggest point of tension in recent weeks has been Biden’s green subsidies and taxes that Brussels says unfairly tilt trade away from the EU and threaten to destroy European industries. Despite formal objections from Europe, Washington has so far shown no sign of backing down.
At the same time, the disruption caused by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is tipping European economies into recession, with inflation rocketing and a devastating squeeze on energy supplies threatening blackouts and rationing this winter.
As they attempt to reduce their reliance on Russian energy, EU countries are turning to gas from the U.S. instead — but the price Europeans pay is almost four times as high as the same fuel costs in America. Then there’s the likely surge in orders for American-made military kit as European armies run short after sending weapons to Ukraine.
It’s all got too much for top officials in Brussels and other EU capitals. French President Emmanuel Macron said high U.S. gas prices were not “friendly” and Germany’s economy minister has called on Washington to show more “solidarity” and help reduce energy costs.
Ministers and diplomats based elsewhere in the bloc voiced frustration at the way Biden’s government simply ignores the impact of its domestic economic policies on European allies.
When EU leaders tackled Biden over high U.S. gas prices at the G20 meeting in Bali last week, the American president simply seemed unaware of the issue, according to the senior official quoted above. Other EU officials and diplomats agreed that American ignorance about the consequences for Europe was a major problem.
“The Europeans are discernibly frustrated about the lack of prior information and consultation,” said David Kleimann of the Bruegel think tank.
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic recognize the risks that the increasingly toxic atmosphere will have for the Western alliance. The bickering is exactly what Putin would wish for, EU and U.S. diplomats agreed.
The growing dispute over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — a huge tax, climate and health care package — has put fears over a transatlantic trade war high on the political agenda again. EU trade ministers are due to discuss their response on Friday as officials in Brussels draw up plans for an emergency war chest of subsidies to save European industries from collapse.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is very worrying,” said Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher. “The potential impact on the European economy is very big.”
“The U.S. is following a domestic agenda, which is regrettably protectionist and discriminates against U.S. allies,” said Tonino Picula, the European Parliament’s lead person on the transatlantic relationship.
An American official stressed the price setting for European buyers of gas reflects private market decisions and is not the result of any U.S. government policy or action. “U.S. companies have been transparent and reliable suppliers of natural gas to Europe,” the official said. Exporting capacity has also been limited by an accident in June that forced a key facility to shut down.
In most cases, the official added, the difference between the export and import prices doesn’t go to U.S. LNG exporters, but to companies reselling the gas within the EU. The largest European holder of long-term U.S. gas contracts is France’s TotalEnergies for example.
It’s not a new argument from the American side but it doesn’t seem to be convincing the Europeans. “The United States sells us its gas with a multiplier effect of four when it crosses the Atlantic,” European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said on French TV on Wednesday. “Of course the Americans are our allies … but when something goes wrong it is necessary also between allies to say it.”
Cheaper energy has quickly become a huge competitive advantage for American companies, too. Businesses are planning new investments in the U.S. or even relocating their existing businesses away from Europe to American factories. Just this week, chemical multinational Solvay announced it is choosing the U.S. over Europe for new investments, in the latest of a series of similar announcements from key EU industrial giants.
Allies or not?
Despite the energy disagreements, it wasn’t until Washington announced a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act that Brussels went into full-blown panic mode.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has changed everything,” one EU diplomat said. “Is Washington still our ally or not?”
For Biden, the legislation is a historic climate achievement. “This is not a zero-sum game,” the U.S. official said. “The IRA will grow the pie for clean energy investments, not split it.”
But the EU sees that differently. An official from France’s foreign affairs ministry said the diagnosis is clear: These are “discriminatory subsidies that will distort competition.” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire this week even accused the U.S. of going down China’s path of economic isolationism, urging Brussels to replicate such an approach. “Europe must not be the last of the Mohicans,” he said.
The EU is preparing its responses, such as a big subsidy push to prevent European industry from being wiped out by American rivals. “We are experiencing a creeping crisis of trust on trade issues in this relationship,” said German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer.
“At some point, you have to assert yourself,” said French MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne. “We are in a world of power struggles. When you arm-wrestle, if you are not muscular, if you are not prepared both physically and mentally, you lose.”
Behind the scenes, there is also growing irritation about the money flowing into the American defense sector.
The U.S. has by far been the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine, supplying more than $15.2 billion in weapons and equipment since the start of the war. The EU has so far provided about €8 billion of military equipment to Ukraine, according to Borrell.
According to one senior official from a European capital, restocking of some sophisticated weapons may take “years” because of problems in the supply chain and the production of chips. This has fueled fears that the U.S. defense industry can profit even more from the war.
The Pentagon is already developing a roadmap to speed up arms sales, as the pressure from allies to respond to greater demands for weapons and equipment grows.
Another EU diplomat argued that “the money they are making on weapons” could help Americans understand that making “all this cash on gas” might be “a bit too much.”
The diplomat argued that a discount on gas prices could help us to “keep united our public opinions” and to negotiate with third countries on gas supplies. “It’s not good, in terms of optics, to give the impression that your best ally is actually making huge profits out of your troubles,” the diplomat said.
Giorgio Leali, Stuart Lau, Camille Gijs, Sarah Anne Aarup and Gloria Gonzalez contributed reporting.
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Barbara Moens, Jakob Hanke Vela and Jacopo Barigazzi
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she no longer saw any possibility of influencing Russian President Vladimir Putin toward the end of her term in office.
In an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel, Merkel talked about her final encounters with Putin, saying that throughout her farewell visit to Moscow in August 2021 she felt “in terms of power politics, you’re done,” adding that “for Putin, only power counts.”
She cited the fact that Putin brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov along to this last visit as another sign of her crumbling power, as previously they met “often in private,” she said.
Merkel also said that the conflict in Ukraine “didn’t come as a surprise” as she said by 2021 the Minsk agreement, which was struck in 2015 aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, was “hollowed out.”
According to Merkel, she unsuccessfully tried to set up “an independent European discussion format with Putin” in the summer of 2021 together with French President Emmanuel Macron, but realized that she no longer had the clout to assert herself in the European Council either, with the end of her time in office looming.
Merkel also defended herself, saying that together with then-U.S. President Barack Obama, “we tried everything after Russia’s annexation of Crimea [in 2014] to prevent further incursions by Russia into Ukraine and coordinated our sanctions in detail.”
The remarks come soon after she was publicly criticized by former Bundestag president and CDU party colleague Wolfgang Schäuble for not acknowledging mistakes in her Russia policy over the past 16 years.
Germany’s dependence on Russian gas deliveries grew continuously under Merkel’s leadership in the years prior to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Former United States President Donald Trump was a useful bogeyman for Europe. His successor, Joe Biden, is proving much trickier — a friend who says all the right things but leaves you in the lurch when it counts.
At each new perceived slight, the Europeans express shock, frustration and dismay: How could Washington fail to consult its allies, or at the very least inform them of its plans? Meanwhile, the American response is always some variant of: Terribly sorry, we didn’t even think of that.
The underlying dynamic is one of polite indifference. Despite Washington’s renewed commitment to NATO and massive outlay of arms and funds to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, the U.S. remains steadfastly focused on what most perceive to be its main existential challenge: China.
In that equation, Europe is often an afterthought. It’s just that many on this side of the Atlantic have failed to get the message — or draw conclusions of what it means for the bloc’s future — instead preferring to act out a script of outrage and remonstrance.
A current example is the blooming transatlantic argument over Biden’s IRA.
Months in the making, painstakingly hashed out on Capitol Hill, the legislation represents Washington’s best bipartisan effort thus far to decarbonize its economy and prepare for decoupling from China. The bill flags $369 billion for energy and climate programs, including billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies for the production of electric vehicles inside the U.S.
It just so happens that it’s a potential disaster for Europe.
Bruised and confused
Amid an energy crisis that has large parts of the European Union economy staring into an abyss, French President Emmanuel Macron has led the charge against Biden’s IRA, accusing Washington of maintaining a “double standard” on energy and trade. He’s called for Europe to respond in kind by rolling out its own subsidy plan, prompting a visit from U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to an EU trade ministers’ meeting in Prague on October 31.
But rather than try to cajole them with concessions, Tai invited them to get on board the China train by rolling out their own subsidies — which isn’t what the Europeans wanted to hear.
According to an EU diplomat who spoke to POLITICO ahead of a trade ministers’ meeting on Friday, members of the bloc still hope that Biden will send the IRA back to Congress for resizing, a prospect U.S. officials say is about as likely as canceling Thanksgiving.
The result is that Europe is now back in familiar territory: Bruised, confused and scrambling for a response while failing to formulate its own cohesive strategy to contend with China. And instead of receiving solidarity from Washington in a time of war, they feel the U.S. has maneuvered itself into a perfect position to suck investment out of Europe.
The outlines of an EU response to the IRA did start to take shape earlier this week, when Paris and Berlin — only recently back on speaking terms after a falling out — jointly called for an EU plan to subsidize domestic industries.
But that plan is likely weeks, even months, away from becoming a reality. And even if all 27 EU countries manage to strike a deal, their leaders will be hard-pressed to inject anywhere near as much money into it as Washington has earmarked, as most EU countries are still howling in pain over the high price of gas — much of which they now import from liquid natural gas terminals in Texas.
Again, Biden’s America is looking after its interests while the EU’s left to groan about missed signals, hurt feelings and unfair practices.
The tragedy for Europe is that this is happening at a time when transatlantic relations are meant to be at an all-time high. Biden’s election, followed by the war in Ukraine and Washington’s massive investment in shoring up NATO’s eastern flank, was meant to signal the U.S.’s decisive return to the European sphere.
But what the Europeans are discovering is that the Ukraine war is just one facet of the U.S.’s larger strategic duel with China, which will always take precedence over EU interests.
That was true under Trump, and it remains true under his successor. It’s just that the message is delivered in a different style.
In the long run, Biden’s polite indifference may prove more deadly.
In a significant escalation of political unrest, protests against China’s strict zero-COVID policy spread to several cities and university campuses across the country, with demonstrators in Shanghai calling for President Xi Jinping to step down.
After erupting in the Xinjiang region, social media footage indicates that demonstrations have now broken out in Nanjing, Urumqi, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Beijing, where street protesters tore down a physical COVID barrier.
The Chinese Communist Party has pursued a zero-COVID policy, cracking down on any virus transmission by implementing stringent lockdown measures that confine millions of people to their homes for months on end. But case numbers have begun to surge recently.
In Shanghai, police pepper-sprayed around 300 protesters on Saturday night, the Associated Press reported. The demonstrators demanded that President Xi Jinping resign and called for the end of his Communist Party’s rule. Hours later, people demonstrated again in the same spot; police again broke up the protest, the AP said.
According to AFP, students also protested at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Xi himself studied.
In an unprecedented wave of public dissent, protesters have jostled with lab-coat-wearing officials and held up blank pieces of paper in defiance of the authoritarian regime.
The protests began in the wake of a fire on Thursday night that killed 10 people in an apartment in Urumqi, the Xinjiang regional capital, and that some protesters allege was worsened by the strict enforcement of the lockdown policy. Beijing stands accused of human rights violations against Uyghurs, a Muslim minority, in Xinjiang, a region in the far west of the country.
Amnesty International appealed to the Chinese government to allow peaceful protest. “The tragedy of the Urumqi fire has inspired remarkable bravery across China,” said the group’s regional director, Hanna Young, according to the AP. “These unprecedented protests show that people are at the end of their tolerance for excessive COVID-19 restrictions.”
Some commentators have described the wave of protests as the biggest threat yet to President Xi’s rule, which he consolidated last month by securing an unprecedented third five-year term in office.
European Council President Charles Michel is traveling to China to meet Xi on December 1, as the EU reassesses its economic dependence on China against the backdrop of Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine, which China has not publicly condemned.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged earlier this month that Beijing’s methods for fighting the coronavirus “differ greatly” from those of Berlin, but that the two governments are aligned in the battle against the pandemic. Scholz announced during a visit to China in early November that the BioNTech/Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine would be offered to expats in China.
Two Russian soldiers walked down a street in Kherson on a spring evening in early March, just days after Moscow captured the city. The temperature that night was still below freezing and the power was out, leaving the city in complete darkness as the soldiers made their way back to camp after a few drinks.
As one stumbled on, the other stopped to relieve himself on the side of the pavement. Suddenly, a knife was thrust deep into the right side of his neck.
He fell to the grass. Moments later, the second Russian soldier, inebriated and unaware, met the same fate.
“I finished the first one immediately and then I caught up with the other and killed him on the spot,” says Archie, a Ukrainian resistance fighter who described the scene above to CNN.
He says he moved on pure instinct.
“I saw the orcs in uniform and I thought, why not?,” Archie adds, using a derogative term for Russians, as he walks through that same street. “There were no people or light and I seized the moment.”
The 20-year-old is a trained mixed martial arts fighter, with nimble feet and sharp reflexes, who had previously always carried a knife for self-defense, but never killed anyone. CNN is referring to him by his call sign to protect his identity.
“Adrenaline played its role. I didn’t have any fear or time to think,” he says. “For the first few days I felt very bad, but then I realized that they were my enemies. They came to my home to take it from me.”
Archie’s account was backed up by Ukrainian military and intelligence sources who handled communications with him and other partisans. He was one of many resistance fighters in Kherson, a city of 290,000 people before the invasion, which Russia tried to bend but could not break.
People in Kherson made their views clear soon after Russia took over the city on March 2 coming out onto the main square for daily protests, donning the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag.
But Kherson, the first large city and only regional capital Russian troops were able to occupy since the start of the invasion, was an important symbol for Moscow. Dissent could not be tolerated.
Protesters were met with tear gas and gunshots, organisers and the more outspoken residents were arrested and tortured. When peaceful demonstrations didn’t work, the people of Kherson turned to resistance and ordinary citizens like Archie started to take action on their own.
“I wasn’t the only one in Kherson,” Archie says. “There were a lot of clever partisans. At least 10 Russians were killed every night.”
Initially solo operations, like-minded residents began organising themselves in groups, coordinating their actions with the Ukrainian military and intelligence outside the city.
“I have a friend with whom we would drive around the city, looking for gatherings of Russian soldiers,” he says. “We checked their patrol routes and then gave all the information to guys on the frontline and they knew who to pass onto next.”
Russian soldiers weren’t the only ones targeted for assassination. Several Moscow-installed government officials were targeted during the eight months of the Russian occupation. Their faces were printed in posters placed all over the city, promising retribution for their collaboration with the Kremlin, in a psychological war that lasted throughout the occupation.
Many of those promises were kept, with some of those officials gunned down and others blown up in their cars in incidents that pro-Russian local authorities described as “terrorist attacks.”
Archie was arrested by the occupying authorities on May 9, after attending a victory day parade, celebrating the Soviet Union’s win in World War II, wearing a yellow and blue stripe on his t-shirt.
He was taken to a local pre-trial detention facility which had been taken over by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and used to torture Ukrainian soldiers, intelligence officers and partisans, according to Archie.
“They beat me, electrocuted me, kicked me and beat me with batons,” Archie recalls. “I can’t say they starved me, but they didn’t give much to eat.”
“Nothing good happened there,” he said.
Archie was lucky enough to be let go after nine days and after being forced to record a video saying he’d agreed to work with the Russian occupiers. His account of what transpired in the facility has been confirmed by Ukrainian military sources and other detainees.
But many others never left, according to Archie and other resistance fighters, as well as Ukrainian military and intelligence sources.
Ihor, who asked CNN not to reveal his last name for his protection, was also held at the facility.
“I was kept here for 11 days and throughout that time I heard screaming from the basement,” the 29-year-old says. “People were tortured, they were beaten with sticks in the arms and legs, cattle prods, even hooked up to batteries and electrocuted or waterboarded with water.”
Ihor was caught transporting weapons and says “luckily” he was only beaten.
“I arrived after the time when people were beaten up to death here,” he recalls. “I was stabbed in the legs with a taser, they use it as a welcome. One of them asked what I’d been brought in for and another two of them started hitting me in the ribs.”
Through his detention, Ihor was able to hide that he was a member of the Kherson resistance and that transporting weapons was not the only thing he did. Ihor says he also supplied intelligence to the Ukrainian military – an activity that would have incurred far more brutal punishment.
“If we found something, saw it, (we) took a picture or a video (and) sent it to Ukrainian forces and then they would decide whether to hit it or not,” he explains.
Among the coordinates he communicated to the Ukrainian military is a warehouse within Kherson city. “The Russian military kept between 20 to 30 vehicles here, there were armored trucks, armored personnel carriers and some Russians lived here,” Ihor says.
Departing Russian forces were quick to hollow out what was left of the prized interior, but the wrecked building bears the marks of the violent strike. Most of the roof has collapsed, its walls lay shattered and broken glass still covers most of the floor. The structure remains in place but in parts its metal has been mangled by the blast.
Ihor used the Telegram messaging app to communicate the building’s coordinates to his military handler, who he referred to as “the smoke.” Along with the information, he sent a video he secretly recorded.
“I turned on the camera, pointed it at the building and then I just walked and talked on the phone while the camera was filming,” he explains. “Afterward I deleted video, of course, because if they were to stop me somewhere and check my videos and pictures there would be questions…”
He sent the information in mid-September and, just a day later, the facility was targeted by Ukrainian artillery.
The United States and NATO have assessed that when Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin expected its forces to be greeted as saviors, welcomed with open arms. Reality failed to live up to expectation, not just in the territories where Moscow’s armies were pushed back, but also in the areas it was able to seize.
The strike on the warehouse which Ihor helped with, is one of many facilitated by Ukrainian partisans inside Kherson working tirelessly and under threat to disrupt Russian activities within the city.
Eight months after it was occupied by Russia, the city of Kherson is now back in Ukrainian hands and Moscow’s armies are on the back foot, forced to withdraw from the western bank of the Dnipro river.
But despite achieving victory here, Ukraine continues to faces almost daily crippling missile strikes almost everywhere else, all while Russian forces continue to press on in the East.
Looking back, Ihor, father to a three-month-old daughter, says he was lucky he wasn’t caught.
“It wasn’t hard, but it was dangerous,” he explains. “If they were to catch me filming such a thing, they would take me in and probably wouldn’t let me come out alive.”
Russian forces launched another large-scale attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure. More than 70 cruise missiles rained down on the country’s energy grid, knocking out power to millions. Chris Livesay is in Ukraine with more.
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The EU is in emergency mode and is readying a big subsidy push to prevent European industry from being wiped out by American rivals, two senior EU officials told POLITICO.
Europe is facing a double hammer blow from the U.S. If it weren’t enough that energy prices look set to remain permanently far higher than those in the U.S. thanks to Russia’s war in Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden is also currently rolling out a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act.
EU officials fear that businesses will now face almost irresistible pressure to shift new investments to the U.S. rather than Europe. EU industry chief Thierry Breton is warning that Biden’s new subsidy package poses an “existential challenge” to Europe’s economy.
The European Commission and countries including France and Germany have realized they need to act quickly if they want to prevent the Continent from turning into an industrial wasteland. According to the two senior officials, the EU is now working on an emergency scheme to funnel money into key high-tech industries.
The tentative solution now being prepared in Brussels is to counter the U.S. subsidies with an EU fund of its own, the two senior officials said. This would be a “European Sovereignty Fund,” which was already mentioned in the State of the Union address by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in September, to help businesses invest in Europe and meet ambitious green standards.
Senior officials said the EU had to act extremely quickly as companies are already making decisions on where to build their future factories for everything from batteries and electric cars to wind turbines and microchips.
Another reason for Brussels to respond rapidly is to avoid individual EU countries going it alone in splashing out emergency cash, the officials warned. The chaotic response to the gas price crisis, where EU countries reacted with all sorts of national support measures that threatened to undermine the single market, is still a sore point in Brussels.
European Commissioner Breton especially has led the pack in sounding alarm bells. At a meeting with EU industry leaders Monday, Breton issued his warning on the “existential challenge” to Europe from the Inflation Reduction Act, according to people in the room. Breton said it was now a matter of utmost urgency to “revert the deindustrialization process taking place.”
Breton was echoing calls from business leaders all over Europe warning about a perfect storm brewing for manufacturers. “It’s a bit like drowning. It’s happening quietly,” BusinessEurope President Fredrik Persson said.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a particular bugbear to EU carmaking nations — such as France and Germany — as it encourages consumers to “Buy American” when it comes to electric vehicles. Brussels and EU capitals see this as undermining global free trade, and Brussels wants to cut a deal in which its companies can enjoy the same American benefits.
With a diplomatic solution seeming unlikely and Brussels wanting to avoid an all-out trade war, a subsidy race now looks increasingly likely as a contentious Plan B.
To do that, it will be vital to secure support from Germany and from the more economically liberal commissioners such as trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and competition chief Margrethe Vestager.
At a meeting of EU trade ministers on Friday, Brussels hopes to get more clarity from Berlin on whether they are willing to break their subsidy taboo.
France has long been calling for a counterstrike against Washington by funneling state funds into European industry to help industrial champions on the Continent. That idea is now also gaining traction in Berlin, which has traditionally been economically more liberal.
On Tuesday, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire issued a joint statement to call for an “EU industrial policy that enables our companies to thrive in the global competition especially through technological leadership,” adding that “we want to coordinate closely a European approach to challenges such as the United States Inflation Reduction Act.”
Apart from the trade ministers’ meeting on Friday, the idea will also informally be discussed among competition ministers next week. One official said European leaders will also discuss it on the margins of the Western Balkan summit on December 6 and at the European Council mid-December.
Hans von der Burchard, Giorgio Leali and Paola Tamma contributed reporting.
SBU intelligence service says the raid was to investigate suspicions of Russia using the complex for sabotage and to store weapons.
Ukraine’s security service and police have raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv to counter suspected “subversive activities by Russian special services”.
The sprawling Kyiv Pechersk Lavra complex – or Kyiv Monastery of the Caves – is a Ukrainian cultural treasure and its cathedral, churches and other buildings are a UNESCO-listed World Heritage site.
Overlooking the right bank of the Dnieper River, it is also the headquarters of the Russian-backed wing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and falls under the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Ukrainian counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism service said the search was part of its “systematic work to counter the subversive activities of the Russian special services in Ukraine”.
The statement from the intelligence service, known as the SBU for its initials in Ukrainian, said the operation was aimed at preventing the use of the monastery as “the centre of the Russian world” and carried out to look into suspicions “about the use of the premises … for sheltering sabotage and reconnaissance groups, foreign citizens, [and] weapons storage”. It said another site was also being searched in the Rivne region, 240 kilometres (150 miles) west of the capital.
Orthodox priests are shown speaking to Ukrainian law enforcement officers. The raid followed reports of a sermon at a recent service where the priest spoke favourably of Russia [Press Service of the State Security Service of Ukraine via Reuters]
The “Russian world” concept is at the centre of President Vladimir Putin’s new foreign policy doctrine, which aims to protect Russia’s language, culture and religion. It has been used by conservative ideologues to justify intervention abroad.
The SBU did not elaborate on the outcome of the operation.
War deepens split
In Russia, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Ukrainian authorities of “waging a war on the Russian Orthodox Church”.
He described the search “as another link in the chain of these aggressive actions against Russian Orthodoxy”.
Moscow-based church authorities have repeatedly voiced support for the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church, has described the war as a “metaphysical struggle” between Moscow and the West. He condemned Tuesday’s search as “an act of intimidation”.
“Like many other cases of persecution of believers in Ukraine since 2014, this act of intimidation of believers is almost certain to go unnoticed by those who call themselves the international human rights community,” said Vladimir Legoyda, a spokesperson for the Russian Orthodox Church.
The SBU operation follows a November 12 service at the Pechersk Lavra complex where a Ukrainian Orthodox priest was filmed talking about the “awakening” of Russia.
The SBU said it was “looking into the details of the incident that happened in one of the temples of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – where songs praising the ‘Russian world’ were sung”.
The thousand-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is a World Heritage site and one of the most famous sites in the Ukrainian capital [File: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP Photo]
Last Friday, the SBU said it had charged a senior clergyman from the western Vinnytsia region with attempting to distribute leaflets justifying Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.
In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate ended its ties with the Russian Church over the latter’s support for what Moscow calls a “special military operation”.
Ukraine says the full-scale invasion was an unprovoked war of aggression.
A 2020 survey by the Kyiv-based Razumkov Centre found that 34 percent of Ukrainians identified as members of the main Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while 14 percent were members of Ukraine’s Moscow Patriarchate Church.
In 2019, Ukraine was given permission by the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians worldwide to form a church independent of Moscow, largely ending centuries of religious ties between the two countries.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine could face rolling blackouts across the country through March, an energy expert said, due to what another official described Tuesday as the “colossal” damage done to Ukraine‘s power grid by relentless Russian airstrikes. Ukrainians are being told to stock up on supplies, evacuate hard-hit areas — or even think about leaving the country altogether.
Sergey Kovalenko, the CEO of private energy provider DTEK Yasno, said the company was under instructions from Ukraine’s state grid operator to resume emergency blackouts in the areas it covers, including the capital Kyiv and the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.
“Although there are fewer blackouts now, I want everyone to understand: Most likely, Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts until at least the end of March,” Kovalenko warned in a Facebook post.
“I think we need to be prepared for different options, even the worst ones. Stock up on warm clothes, blankets, think about what will help you wait out a long shutdown,” he said, addressing Ukrainian residents.
Russia has been pummeling Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure from the air for weeks, as the war approaches its nine-month milestone. That onslaught has caused widespread blackouts and deprived millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water.
“This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine,” said Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe, due to the lack of power and Ukraine’s damaged health facilities.
Temperatures commonly stay below freezing in Ukraine in the winter, and snow has already fallen in many areas, including Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities have started evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions out of fear that the winter will be too hard to survive.
Kovalenko said even if no more Russian airstrikes occur, scheduled outages will be needed across Ukraine to ensure that power is evenly distributed across the country’s battered energy grid.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian missile strikes have damaged more than 50% of the country’s energy facilities.
“The scale of destruction is colossal” on the power grid from the Russian barrage last week, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo, the state-owned power grid operator, told Ukrainian TV on Tuesday.
He said Ukraine has “practically no intact thermal (or) hydroelectric power plants” following the large-scale attack by Moscow on Nov. 15.
Also Tuesday, the Kyiv regional authorities said more than 150 settlements were enduring emergency blackouts due to the onset of winter weather, including snowfall and high winds. More than 70 repair teams have been deployed to restore power across the province.
The battle for terrain has continued unabated despite the deteriorating weather conditions, with Ukrainian forces pressing against Russian positions as part of a weeks-long counteroffensive and Moscow’s forces keeping up shelling and missile strikes.
In a key battlefield development, a Ukrainian official acknowledged that Kyiv’s forces are attacking Russian positions on the Kinburn Spit, which is a gateway to the Black Sea basin and parts of the southern Kherson region that are still under Russian control.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South, said in televised remarks that Ukrainian forces are “continuing a military operation” in the area.
The Kinburn Spit is Russia’s last outpost in Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv region, directly west of Kherson. Ukrainian forces recently liberated other parts of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Moscow has used the Kinburn Spit as a staging ground for missile and artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Mykolaiv province, and elsewhere along the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.
Ukraine recently recaptured the city of Kherson, on the western bank of the Dnieper River, and surrounding areas.
Recapturing the Kinburn Spit could help Ukrainian forces push into territory that Russia still holds in the Kherson region “under significantly less Russian artillery fire” than directly crossing the Dnieper, a Washington-based think tank said. The Institute for the Study of War added that control of the area would help Kyiv alleviate Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern seaports and allow Ukraine to increase its naval activity in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s presidential office said Tuesday that at least eight civilians were killed and 16 were injured over the previous 24 hours, as Moscow’s forces once again used drones, rockets and heavy artillery to pound eight Ukrainian regions.
In the eastern Donetsk region, fierce battles continued around the city of Bakhmut, where the Kremlin’s forces are keen to clinch a victory after weeks of embarrassing military setbacks. Donetsk Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko also said Russia launched missiles at the city of Kramatorsk, a Ukrainian military hub, and on the strategic city of Avdiivka.
He added that power and communications were nonexistent in most of the Donetsk region.
According to Ukraine’s presidential office, one civilian was killed and three others wounded after Russia shelled the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces recaptured on Nov. 10.
Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, the war has killed at least 16,784 civilians and injured 10,189, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates.
But U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, estimated earlier this month that some 40,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded.
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Follow all AP stories about the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.
CBS News correspondent Chris Livesay talks to a worker inside the Zaporizhia nuclear plant in Ukraine about the dangers of nuclear disaster as the United Nations expresses concerns about safety and fighting continues in the area.
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IAEA head on preventing a nuclear disaster in Ukraine and around the world; The worldwide phenomenon of Panini stickers; A state prison rehabilitating inmates by training wild horses.
IAEA head on preventing a nuclear disaster in Ukraine and around the world; The worldwide phenomenon of Panini stickers; A state prison rehabilitating inmates by training wild horses.
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IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi tells Lesley Stahl about the precarious nuclear situation in Ukraine and the work his team is doing to prevent a catastrophe.
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Sixty years ago to the day, November 20th, the world sighed in relief as the Cuban Missile Crisis ended. It was the closest we ever came to nuclear armageddon – until now, with Russia threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war. And then, there’s the dire and deteriorating condition of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhia, in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
The situation is carefully monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog tasked with making sure nuclear facilities are safe and atomic material is used only for peaceful purposes.
Its director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, recently inspected the site, which may be the most dangerous place in the world.
Lesley Stahl: So correct me if I’m wrong: Is this the first time a major power plant has been under fire in the middle of a war.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Well, it’s an unprecedented thing, really, in so many ways. This place is at the front line which makes the whole thing so volatile and in need of an urgent action.
Zaporizhzhia has been shelled repeatedly since March, with both sides blaming each other. Before the war the plant supplied 20% of Ukraine’s power. It’s now largely idle, but the reactors still need to be constantly cooled down with circulating water. If they overheat it could lead to nuclear catastrophe within hours.
Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant
Getty Images
Lesley Stahl: The whole system is being cooled by electricity that’s coming in from the town, and there’s shelling. So what would happen if that electricity went down?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: What you have in that– in that situation is emergency systems that kick in. Like, diesel generators that you can have on a private property. And you don’t want the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe, one of the biggest in the world, to be cooled with– basically an emergency system which is dependent on fuel. Because when your diesels are out of whatever you put in it to make them work then what happens? Then you have a meltdown. Then you have a big radiological nuclear emergency or an accident, and this is what we are trying to prevent.
Lesley Stahl: So this situation is totally precarious.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Totally. Until we have this plant protected, the possibility of the nuclear catastrophe is there.
Possibly dwarfing Chernobyl, a far smaller Ukrainian plant that famously blew up 36 years ago. In late August, after months of negotiating with both sides, Director General Grossi led his agency’s first mission into an active warzone, to inspect the stability of the site.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: And as we were approaching the last Ukrainian checkpoint, we started hearing– shooting– quite heavy shooting. Very close to us. So at that point– even the people at the checkpoint were running for shelter.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think that the convoy itself was a target?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: I think it was an– a clear attempt to stop us, to say, “Go home. This is not your place.”
Rafael Mariano Grossi
But they proceeded. There were soldiers, tanks and armored trucks everywhere. The Russians are actually using the nuclear plant as their military base.
Lesley Stahl: When you went to visit, to inspect, you could go anywhere?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: You weren’t kept from–
Rafael Mariano Grossi: You know– yes, you know– we are the IAEA. We are known as the nuclear watchdog.
Lesley Stahl: Well, there are reports that you weren’t allowed into some crisis room there– into the control room. Is that not true?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Well, there were areas that– where we were limited. But all the things we needed to see we could see.
Lesley Stahl: You didn’t want to see the control room?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Yeah, we did want to see it. But for us, what is important is to be looking at the essential nuclear operation of the plant. And this we could see.
That included evidence that rockets had come dangerously close to the reactors and other sensitive areas.
Rafael Mariano Grossi inspects a hole on the roof of a building at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant where nuclear fuel is stored.
Fredrik Dahl/IAEA
Rafael Mariano Grossi: I was on the– on the top of a building where they are… they are storing fresh fuel, the fuel that is going to go– into the– into the reactors. And–
Lesley Stahl: Nuclear fuel is what we’re–
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Nuclear fuel–
Lesley Stahl: –talking about–
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Nuclear fuel. And I– I could see very big holes out on– on that roof–
Lesley Stahl: On the roof?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Yeah. At least two I saw, very, very big.
On a satellite photo he also pointed out the switchyard where the electricity comes in from the town.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: So this is where the external power comes to cool the reactors down. And this place was shelled several times, several times, which tells you that people knew exactly what they were doing.
Lesley Stahl: They were trying to cut off the power source.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Here, here, here… exactly.
Shelling also destroyed one of the plant’s office buildings. These pictures were given to us by Andriy Tuz, a plant spokesman who fled Ukraine after working four months under Russian occupation.
Lesley Stahl: So tell us what that was like, working inside that plant, under Russian occupation from th–
Andriy Tuz: Yes. (SIGH) Russian troops take all our top manager with gun and they do only what Russian troops want.
Lesley Stahl: Did you feel like a hostage?
Andriy Tuz: Yes. Yes. I feel like I am prisoner in this nuclear power plant. I cannot say nothing because they go with gun.
There have been reports of imprisonments, kidnappings, and torture of Ukrainian employees. The head of the plant was detained. Andriy Tuz told us about the pressure one of the safety inspectors felt.
Andriy Tuz: It’s his work to go and check some pumps, how it work, how barometer, what pressure, what temperature. But he go and Russian tanks stay in front of him. It’s terrible. He cannot do his work. It’s to protect nuclear fuel, to control nuclear reaction.
Andriy Tuz
Lesley Stahl: When you’re operating at a nuclear power plant and you’re under stress, and you’re worried, and you’re feeling threatened, doesn’t that lead to the possibility of human error?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Of course. Yes.
Lesley Stahl: And the shelling goes on.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: And the shelling goes on. And this is why– we have been trying. I have been pushing– for the establishment of a protection zone. Which is basically don’t attack the plant.
He took his proposal to both President Zelensky in Kyiv and President Putin, in a one-on-one meeting last month in St. Petersburg.
Lesley Stahl: Interestingly, you sat very close to him, actually I think closer than you and I are right now.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Maybe, yes.
Lesley Stahl: Would you say that he is familiar with what’s going on-
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Absolutely–
Lesley Stahl: –at this nuclear plant?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: He knows every detail of it, which was surprising to me.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: In my conversation with him, I could see that he had a very– detailed knowledge, not only of the layout of the– of the plant, but also, and very importantly, of the electrical– access, the external power source. So– and he–
Lesley Stahl: Where these things are being bombed?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: It is– it is a facility that he knows– that he knows very well.
Lesley Stahl: Is Mr. Putin trying to use this plant as a weapon? And we know that he’s weaponized energy in this war because of the way he’s used oil and gas. It just raises the question whether this plant is seen in his mind as a way to squeeze the Ukrainians. Someone said to us the other day, “You know, this is his dirty bomb, this plant.”
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Yeah, but if you protect it there’s no dirty bomb.
Grossi meeting with Vladimir Putin
Getty Images
On Monday, the day we met Grossi, Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in Bali and condemned Putin’s threat to use a nuclear weapon. And in Turkey, CIA Director William Burns warned his Russian counterpart of the consequences of such a move.
Lesley Stahl: Here we are talking about the possibility of a dirty bomb or a real bomb– I mean, this kind of idea of nuclear Armageddon because countries are now throwing the idea of using a nuclear weapon.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Yes.
Lesley Stahl: They’re just throwing it up in the air.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: When you talk about using nuclear weapons as “You could this mortar or that Howitzer or that…” I mean this is a completely different ball game.
Lesley Stahl: So heads of state should not be throwing this around.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: They should not be doing that.
Rafael Grossi, at 61, has been working to prevent the proliferation of nukes for almost 4 decades. He’s seen here with his fellow argentinian, pope francis, and his children, 7 daughters and one son. We watched him coaching his son’s soccer team on a rare day off. He’s been particularly busy, given the number of rogue states suspected of developing a bomb.
Lesley Stahl: How close is Iran to making a nuclear bomb?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: At the current level of production of this enriched uranium, Iran has accumulated already enough material to have more than one device, if they chose to do that. But we don’t have any information that would indicate that Iran has a nuclear weapon program at the moment.
Lesley Stahl: Really?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Really.
Lesley Stahl: So if I said to you, “Have we reached the point of no return with Iran? Is it time to just admit they’re a nuclear power?”
Rafael Mariano Grossi: No, we haven’t reached that point. But we need to work very hard so we don’t get there.
Director General Grossi is concerned about another country that hasbecome a member of the nuclear club, North Korea, which is expected to conduct its first underground nuclear test since 2017. And that’s not the only issue on his plate in the Pacific.
Lesley Stahl: The Chinese are protesting the sale of eight nuclear submarines by the United States and Great Britain to Australia. The subs contain nuclear war material.
Lesley Stahl: Do you protest the sale?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: If they want to do this, they have to have a special arrangement with us.
Lesley Stahl: And does Australia have a special arrangement with you?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: We have started working on that, which means that we should be able to come to an agreement that would allow us to inspect this nuclear material in an appropriate way so that it is not diverted, used to make bombs.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think this agreement, if it should come to pass, would satisfy the Chinese? Have you talked to China?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Well, China has a very firm position against this. They have been very critical of it. They have even been very critical of me.
Lesley Stahl: There’s this issue of a double standard. You know, if the sale was to Libya, the West would be screaming. And that it’s Australia, well, you know, they get a pass. Double standard question.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: Well, they may get their pass. They will not get mine until I have a satisfactory agreement.
Lesley Stahl: I want to go back to the nuclear power plant for one second, to Zaporizhzhia. When I realized that a nuclear power plant was under attack, my mind can’t even— calibrate what this means.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: It’s mind boggling, yeah, exactly. A demand for protection of the plant is very important. You don’t shell a nuclear power plant. You don’t storm a nuclear power plant.
Lesley Stahl: What about using a nuclear power plant as a military base?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: This is part of the agreement I have proposed.
Lesley Stahl: Yeah. But no one’s agreeing.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: They will.
Lesley Stahl: You think?
Rafael Mariano Grossi: I think.
Lesley Stahl: Are you — you’re always optimistic. This is you.
Rafael Mariano Grossi: I must– I must. Should I throw the towel? If I do that, can you imagine that? No.
Produced by Shachar Bar-On. Associate producer, Jinsol Jung. Broadcast associate, Wren Woodson. Edited by Peter M. Berman.
Powerful explosions rocked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine this weekend, renewing concerns that fighting so close to the facility could cause a nuclear accident.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said that whoever was responsible for the attacks was “playing with fire,” reiterating a warning he made in September.
IAEA experts at the plant said that more than a dozen blasts were heard within a short period of time Sunday morning local time, the nuclear watchdog said in a statement. Shelling was observed both near and at the site of the facility. IAEA officials could even see some explosions from their windows, the nuclear watchdog said.
“Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately,” Grossi added.
Based on information provided by the plant management, the IAEA team said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the plant’s site, “but none of them so far critical for nuclear safety and security,” the agency said. There were no reports of casualties.
Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the attacks.
Ukraine’s national nuclear power company Energoatom said it appeared that Russian forces were trying to hinder the country’s ability to provide electricity to its citizens. The Kremlin has, in recent weeks, carried out a campaign of bombings and airstrikes on Ukrainian infrastructure designed to cripple Kyiv’s ability to provide heat to its residents as winter approaches.
The Russian Defense Ministry alleged that the blasts at Zaporizhzhia were the result of artillery fired by the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russian forces of storing heavy weaponry inside the complex and using it as cover to launch attacks, knowing that Ukraine can’t return fire without risking hitting one of the plant’s reactors.
CNN is unable to verify the claims by Energoatom or the Russian government.
Grossi and the IAEA have repeatedly called for both sides to implement a nuclear safety and security zone around Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Grossi has taken part in “intense consultations with Ukraine and Russia about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement,” the IAEA said.
Skirmishes near Zaporizhzhia have taken place intermittently since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and seized the plant days later. Intense shelling near the complex this summer sparked concerns of a nuclear accident, prompting the IAEA to send a team there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree in October federalizing the plant which is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the city and sits in Russian occupied territory along the Dnipro River. The move sparked concerns over the fate of the Ukrainian technicians who have operated the plant since its occupation by Russian forces.
The blasts on Saturday and Sunday ended what the IAEA said was “a relative period of calm.”
