The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said that attacking a nuclear power plant is a war crime, after Russia on Friday seized a Ukrainian nuclear facility that is the biggest in Europe.
The statement on the embassy’s Twitter account went further than any U.S. characterization of Russia’s actions in Ukraine since it launched its invasion Feb. 24.
“It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further,” U.S. Embassy Kyiv said in its post.
Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in heavy fighting in southeastern Ukraine, triggering global alarm, but a blaze in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.
Russia’s defense ministry blamed a fire at the plant on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
The State Department sent a message to all U.S. embassies in Europe telling them not to retweet the Kyiv Embassy’s tweet calling the attack a war crime, according to CNN, which said it reviewed the message.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters asking if the Kyiv Embassy’s tweet reflects the position of the entire U.S. government.
Rights groups have alleged violations of international war crimes law in Ukraine, including the targeting of civilians, as well as indiscriminate attacks on schools and hospitals.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden stopped short of calling Russia’s actions war crimes, saying, “It’s too early to say that.”
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Friday declined to answer the question, saying he would leave that determination to the International Criminal Court.
“This just underscores how reckless the Russian invasion has been and how indiscriminate their targeting seems to be. It just raises the level of potential catastrophe to a level that nobody wants to see,” Kirby said in an interview with CNN.
“It is certainly not the behavior of a responsible nuclear power.”
Britain has publicly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government of war crimes.
The ICC, the world’s top war crimes prosecutor, on the request of 39 member states, is investigating reports of cluster bombs and artillery strikes on Ukrainian cities.
Karim Khan, a British lawyer named as the chief prosecutor of the ICC last year, said the crisis in Ukraine is a chance to demonstrate that those committing war crimes would be held to account.
Intentionally targeting civilians and civilian objects is a war crime, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters, adding that it is backing the investigation, particularly Khan’s efforts to preserve evidence of possible atrocity crimes.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has strongly denied claims that Russian forces have struck civilian infrastructure targets or residential complexes.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels just hours after Russia’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have taken control of Europe’s largest nuclear plant, Zaporizhzhia, near the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, after shelling it and sparking a fire in a building in the plant compound.
Ukraine’s nuclear inspectorate said here has been no radiation leak at the plant and added that plant personnel are continuing to operate the facility safely. Ukrainian officials said firefighters were able to get the blaze at the facility under control.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said a Russian “projectile” hit a training center at the plant. Russia’s Defense Ministry Friday, without citing evidence, accused “Ukrainian saboteurs” of the attack, calling it a “monstrous provocation.”
Enerhodar is a crucial power-generating city on the Dnieper River nearly 700 kilometers southeast of Kyiv. The Zaporizhzhia facility produces about 25% of Ukraine’s power.
Enerhodar, Ukraine
Nuclear safety experts have expressed concern that fighting so close to the power station could cut off the plant’s power supply, which would adversely affect the ability to keep the nuclear fuel cool, and increase the possibility of a nuclear meltdown.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and received an update on the fire at the nuclear power plant, according to a White House statement released late Thursday.
The Biden administration has requested $10 billion in supplemental funding from Congress “to deliver additional humanitarian, security, and economic assistance in Ukraine and the neighboring region in the coming days and weeks,” said a statement from Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. That money, she said, will cover defense equipment, emergency food aid, U.S. troop deployments to neighboring countries and stronger sanctions enforcement.
More sanctions on oligarchs
Also Thursday, Washington heaped another round of sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.
“Today I’m announcing that we’re adding dozens of names to the list, including one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires, and I’m banning travel to America by more than 50 Russian oligarchs, their families and their close associates,” Biden said Thursday before a Cabinet meeting. “And we’re going to continue to support the Ukrainian people with direct assistance.”
Among the newly sanctioned Putin allies is Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals. German authorities have seized his 512-foot yacht, estimated to be worth nearly $600 million. Under the directive, his private jet is also open to seizure. The directive also bans more than 50 wealthy Russians from traveling to the United States.
The sanctions list also includes some of Putin’s oldest friends, a former judo partner and others with connections to the mercenary Wagner Group, and Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov.
“One of the big factors is, of course, the proximity to President Putin,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. “We want him to feel the squeeze. We want the people around him to feel the squeeze. I don’t believe this is going to be the last set of oligarchs.”
She also, again, ruled out Zelenskyy’s request for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“A no-fly zone requires implementation,” she said. “It would require, essentially, the U.S. military shooting down Russian planes and causing — prompting — a potential direct war with Russia: the exact step that we want to avoid.”
On the ground
Moscow’s attempt to quickly take over the Ukrainian capital has apparently stalled, but the military has made significant gains in the south in an effort to sever the country’s connection to the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.
Local government officials and the Russian military confirmed the seizure of the strategic port of Kherson, the first city to fall in the invasion, following days of disputed claims over who was in control. A U.S. defense official said Washington was unable to confirm the development.
Despite Russian assaults on Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol, they all remained in Ukrainian hands, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday.
“We are a people who in a week have destroyed the plans of the enemy,” Zelenskyy said in a video address early Thursday. “They will have no peace here. They will have no food. They will have here not one quiet moment.”
Russian troops were besieging the port city of Mariupol, east of Kherson, an attempt Mayor Vadym Boichenko said was aimed at isolating Ukraine.
“They are trying to create a blockade here,” Boichenko said Thursday in a broadcast video. He said that the Russians were attacking rail stations to prevent civilian evacuations and that the attacks have cut off water and power.
Giving peace a (second) chance
Also Thursday, the two sides held a second round of peace talks in Belarus and agreed to set up humanitarian corridors with cease-fire zones so that civilians could safely flee. Ukraine had pushed for a general cease-fire.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — who is also under direct U.S. sanctions — told reporters Thursday that Russian forces would continue their effort to destroy Ukraine’s military infrastructure and would not allow its neighbor to represent a military threat to Russia.
In a 90-minute telephone conversation Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin told Macron that Russia would achieve its goals, including the demilitarization and neutrality of Ukraine, by any means necessary, the Kremlin said in a statement.
Macron told his Russian counterpart that the war he started against Ukraine was a “major mistake,” according to a French official. “You are lying to yourself,” Macron told Putin regarding the feasibility of his goals, the official said.
Poland has taken in half of the more than 1 million refugees who have fled Ukraine in the past week, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. body says it expects 4 million people could leave Ukraine because of the conflict.
Ukraine’s emergency agency said Wednesday that Russia’s attacks have killed more than 2,000 people across the country.
Faithful gather to pray for peace in Ukraine, amid Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, in St. Peter’s Square, at the Vatican, March 2, 2022.
Russia’s Defense Ministry put out its first casualty report, saying 498 of its troops were killed in Ukraine, with more than 1,500 wounded.
Russians ‘stalled’ outside Kyiv
A senior U.S. defense official said Thursday the Russian forces in northern Ukraine and outside Kyiv remained “largely stalled,” despite U.S. assessments that 90% of the combat power that Russia prepared for the invasion had entered Ukraine.
The official said that the cities in northern and eastern Ukraine, including Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkiv, were subjected Thursday to “heavy bombardment” but that Russian forces in the north were still facing stiff resistance.
“We continue to see them resist and fight and defend their territory and their resources quite effectively,” said the official, who added that Russia has launched more than 480 missiles since the invasion began.
Putin offered a more optimistic assessment Thursday, telling members of his security council on a video call that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is progressing “according to plan.”
“All tasks are being successfully carried out,” he said.
VOA State Department Bureau Chief Nike Ching, national security correspondent Jeff Seldin, Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, Istanbul foreign correspondent Heather Murdock and White House correspondent Anita Powell contributed to this report.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that an Australian company that makes chargers for electric vehicles will build a manufacturing facility in Tennessee, while reiterating his commitment to make the U.S. government’s fleet of cars electric.
The new plant will produce up to 30,000 electric vehicle chargers per year and create 500 local jobs, according to Biden and the Brisbane-based company, Tritium. State officials said production is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2022.
Biden touted “an American manufacturing comeback.” Tritium’s chargers will “use American parts, American iron, American steel,” and will be installed by union workers, Biden said. He said the federal government’s fleet of 600,000 vehicles will “end up being electric vehicles.”
“The benefits are going to ripple through thousands of miles in every direction and these jobs will multiply,” Biden said, adding the manufacturing plants will lead to a growth in steel mills, small parts suppliers and construction sites throughout the country.
A Tritium electric vehicle charger is seen during an event with President Joe Biden in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, Feb. 8, 2022.
Tritium CEO Jane Hunter appeared alongside Biden at the White House and said Biden’s policies “have contributed to enormous demand” for Tritium products in the United States. This “directly led us to pivot and change our global manufacturing strategy.”
Biden also announced that this week, the White House will roll out a state-by-state allocation of $5 billion in funding for electric vehicle chargers. He used the speech to highlight contributions by U.S. companies involved in manufacturing electric vehicles including Tesla, a company Biden has refrained from naming in the past.
Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a key of his economic agenda, including pushing for billions of dollars of public and private investments in the electric vehicle industry. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passed last year provided money for a sprawling network of electric vehicle charging stations across the country.
Biden has said electric cars will be more climate-friendly and affordable for American families, and the White House has set a target of half the vehicles sold in the United States to be electric or plug-in hybrids by 2030.
The Tritium announcement is the latest in recent weeks by major companies announcing investments in U.S. manufacturing and jobs, including Intel, General Motors and Boeing. More than $200 billion in investments in domestic manufacturing of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aircraft, and batteries have been announced since 2021.
More employment and the consolidation of a science and technology hub are part of the implications for Antioquia the beginning of the construction of a plant in the municipality of Rionegro, that will make Colombia return to its own production of vaccines, after more than 20 years.
The first stone was symbolically laid this Wednesday by President Iván Duque and other regional and national authorities, completing a puzzle with the logo of VaxThera, the Sura Group company that will carry out this project.
(You may be interested: This is the official date given by EPM for the startup of Hidroituango)
Although that was the way to start the construction of the plant, a permit is pending to start building the infrastructure, which in its first phase includes 10,000 square meters, in a lot of more than 35,000.
Jorge Emilio Osorio, president of VaxThera explained that this first phase will last until June 2023 and it is estimated that 100 million doses of vaccines will be produced per year.
We have already filed all the documents in the Mayor’s Office of Rionegro to start construction. We are simply waiting for approval so we can start immediately
“We have already filed all the documents with the Rionegro mayor’s office to start construction. We are simply waiting for approval to start immediately,” said Osorio.
After that phase, in the next phase it is estimated that there will be a production of between 200 and 250 million doses per year, which will generate between 500 and 1,000 jobs annually in this municipality in Eastern Antioquia.
(We recommend: Gustavo Petro’s strategy to conquer Antioquia)
“Rionegro celebrates it for the opportunity it has in terms of job creation, but also because this is the gateway to that technological hub of scientific development, innovation and creativity that we can have in our territory,” said Rodrigo Hernández Alzate , mayor of Rionegro.
The president indicated that the Rionegro Council approved tax relief for industry and commerce and property tax so that this Sura group company could have incentives and make the decision to build the plant in this municipality in the East and not in Valle del Cauca. or Cundinamarca, which were other options.
“That tax incentive that we gave precisely seeks to encourage the generation of employment, of those jobs a large majority are with people from here in Rionegro. We have to continue advancing in the training of more professionals from this territory, from the entire department,” he explained. Hernandez.
(Also read: Beware of this modality of scam using vacancies from the U. de Antioquia)
The construction license was filed with the Rionegro Urban Curator, so a prompt approval response is expected. In turn, the Planning Office of said municipality evaluated this request, taking into account the Land Use Plan and determined that it was consistent with the use of the land.
The airport
For Aníbal Gaviria, governor of Antioquia, having this plant in the department also means giving continuity to projects in Rionegro, where the José María Córdova international airport is located.
What is going to be done is to consolidate that hub and many other industries with high added value, and that requires the expansion of the José María Córdova airport and the second runway there.
“What is happening here is the seed for the beginning of a hub for science, technology, health, a hub for life. Let us remember that here we already have the San Vicente Hospital and that what is going to be done is to consolidate that hub and many other industries with high added value and that requires the expansion of the José María Córdova airport and the second runway there,” explained the president.
Gaviria mentioned that one of the most important aspects is the alliance between the University of Wisconsin, the National University and the Sura Group.with the support of local and national governments, to train more professionals in the scientific aspect.
(Be sure to read: They frustrate the alleged robbery of congressmen from the Democratic Center in Medellín)
For now, The company Vaxthera is developing a vaccine against covid-19 called UNIVAXwhich is designed to combat the different variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and has shown positive results in preclinical studies.
“This will be an excellent booster vaccine and we hope to be in phase 1 and 2 clinical studies after the second half of the year.”Osorio said.
Once it is approved for use in humans, this would be a positive aspect so that there is no shortage of vaccines in Antioquia, just as it has occurred in other departments of the country.
“Not only are they going to produce vaccines for covid, but also vaccines for the Immunized Vaccination Plan, which is also very important. This will allow us not only to have enough vaccines to comply with the vaccination plans, but also to be able to comply for Latin America , which is also the goal of VaxThera,” said Lina Bustamente, Secretary of Health of Antioquia.
