KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Security at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant remains fragile amid worrying recent staff cuts enacted by Russian authorities occupying the facility, which is one of the 10 biggest atomic power plants in the world, the United Nations nuclear watchdog chief said Tuesday.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, who is in Kyiv, told The Associated Press that his upcoming visit to the plant as the war approaches its two-year milestone will aim to assess the impact of recent personnel reductions after Russia denied access to employees of Ukraine’s Energoatom.

“This huge facility used to have around 12,000 staff. Now, this has been reduced to between 2,000 and 3,000, which is quite a steep reduction in the number of people working there,” Grossi said. “To man, to operate these very sophisticated big installations you need a certain number of people performing different specific functions.”

“So far the situation is stable, but it is a very, very delicate equilibrium,” he said. “So this is why I need to see for myself what is the situation, what are the prospects in terms of staffing, medium-term and long-term as well.”

Grossi’s visit coincided with the arrival in the Ukrainian capital of the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, who said he was there to discuss military aid and financial support as well as Ukraine’s ambition of joining the bloc.

The 27 EU countries agreed last week to provide Ukraine with 50 billion euros ($54 billion) in support for its ailing economy. But the EU’s military backing is falling short, leaving Ukraine’s forces grappling with ammunition shortages while Russia uses its economic muscle to keep up the pressure with probing ground and air attacks.

At the same time, a question mark remains over further help for Ukraine from the United States, its biggest supplier.

That has made the early months of this year a critical juncture for Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has indicated he is mulling a broad shake-up of the country’s leadership to bring “fresh energy” to the fight.

The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the Zaporizhzhia facility amid fears of a potential nuclear catastrophe. The plant has repeatedly been caught in the crossfire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and seized the facility shortly after.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.

Rossi said he would also check the stability of the facility’s cooling function in the wake of the Kakhovka Dam collapse over the summer, and the presence of mines in and around the plant.

The plant suffered yet another blackout last month, highlighting continuing nuclear safety concerns as battles rage nearby.

“All these things tell us that the situation in Zaporizhzhia continues to be fragile and it requires constant care,” Grossi said.

Of particular concern is the Russian decision to block access for Ukrainian staff employed by Kyiv’s national operator, who refused to sign contracts with the Russian operator at the site.

The staff working at the plant now are former Energoatom workers who adopted Russian citizenship and signed new contracts with Russia’s operator at the site.

Reasons for the staff reduction vary. Some workers fled, many didn’t want to remain in occupied territory and those who decided to remain did not want to work for Russia.

“Some did continue working, and my Russian counterparts are telling me that they are signing up more and more people. So it’s something that we need to check,” said Grossi.

The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for nearly 18 months and produce no electricity but still hold large amounts of nuclear fuel that must be cooled. The collapse of the dam in June jeopardized access to the reservoir where water was drawn for cooling. To compensate, the plant administration dug wells. “Now we want to see how this has evolved,” Grossi said.

He is to meet with Ukrainian officials before heading to the plant. He is also due to travel to Moscow for talks with officials there.

Access to the entire plant facility for IAEA experts permanently based there is still limited, with Russian authorities denying requests to see certain areas.

Grossi confirmed his team observed anti-personnel mines in some areas of the plant, another cause for concern that he needs to see with his own eyes. He added, however, that the mines appear to be placed between the two perimeter fences.

“We say mines at a nuclear power plant are not advisable, but what we see is that the placement and the type of mines would not pose an immediate danger to the facility.”

In other developments:

— A Russian missile strike killed a 2-month-old infant and injured three women in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region on Tuesday morning, regional authorities said.

— The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday its forces brought down all seven drones launched from Ukraine toward Russia’s Belgorod region overnight.

Elsewhere, four Russian Baltic Sea ports have brought in extra security measures due to the continuing risk from Ukrainian drone attacks, according to documents published Tuesday on the local port authority’s website.

Both Ukraine and Russia have increasingly relied on long-range attacks as fighting remains largely static along the 1,500-kilometer (900-mile) front line.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post UN nuclear chief says security is still fragile at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied nuclear power plant appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A massive barrage of Russian strikes on Monday morning hit critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities in apparent retaliation for what Moscow alleged was a Ukrainian attack on its Black Sea Fleet over the weekend.

Loud explosions were heard across the Ukrainian capital in the early morning as residents prepared to go to work. Some of them received text messages from the emergency services about the threat of a missile attack, and air raid sirens wailed for three straight hours.

Large areas of the city were cut off from power and water supplies as a result, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Local authorities were working to restore a damaged energy facility that supplies power to 350,000 apartments in the capital, he said.

In Kharkiv, two strikes hit critical infrastructure facilities, according to the authorities, and the subway ceased operating. Officials also warned about possible power outages in the city of Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes there.

Critical infrastructure objects were also hit in the Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv, and explosions were reported in other regions of Ukraine. In the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine, the energy facility was hit, according to local authorities. In Vinnytsia, a missile that was shot down landed on civilian buildings, resulting in damage but no casualties, according to regional governor Serhii Borzov.

Some parts of Ukrainian railways were also cut off from power, the Ukrainian Railways reported.

The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.

Commenting on Monday’s attacks, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said that Russian forces “continue to fight with civilian facilities.”

“We will persevere, and generations of Russians will pay a high price for their disgrace,” Yermak said.

It’s the second time this month that Russia unleashed a massive barrage of strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Oct. 10, a similar attack rocked the war-torn country following an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland Russia — an incident Moscow blamed on Kyiv.

Deputy head of the presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said urgent power shutdowns were being carried out after “Russian terrorists once again launched a massive strike on energy facilities in a number of Ukrainian regions.”

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Barrage of Russian strikes hits key Ukrainian infrastructure appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Jack Sweeney is a 19-year-old college freshman at the University of Central Florida. In January it came to light that he had managed to create a system for tracking the movements of America’s billionaires by using public data that records the movements of their private jets.

Most famously, he set up the ElonJet account on Twitter that broadcasted the whereabouts of Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.

More recently, since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, Sweeney appears to have turned his focus towards using his skills to hinder the privacy of Russian oligarchs as they flee sanctions being applied by the U.S. and other western nations.

Tracking Russia’s super-rich

It was reported on March 6 that Sweeney has now created the Twitter account Russia Yachts – it will track the movements of the palatial yachts belonging to various Russian billionaires! The account has already amassed over 16,000 followers who are presumably keen to keep up to date on where these super-rich individuals are at any point in time.

Sweeney has also set up another Twitter account – Russian Oligarch Jets – which tracks the movements of the private jets belonging to the super-wealthy Russians. That account has amassed over 400,000 followers as of now.

Will there be any backlash?

When Elon Musk learned of Sweeney’s project, he approached Jack direct and offered him $5k to take the page down. Jack was calm and cool in his response and counter-offered $50k – stating that he’d use the money towards his college fees and possibly to buy a Tesla Model S too. Musk declined.

According to this handy calculator, it would take around 15 seconds for Musk to earn the $5k he offered Sweeney to take down the tracker from Twitter, which is perhaps why Jack was so reluctant to accept and why he kept the ElonJet account live.

In terms of any similar offers from the Russian oligarchs who he’s now tracking, it seems similarly unlikely that he’ll negotiate a deal. But he has certainly attracted the attention of a lot of high-profile technology companies, many of which will likely be keen to offer him a job!

Toby Hazlewood | Contributed

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post A Florida Teenager Is Tracking Russian Oligarchs’ Yachts and Jets on Twitter – He’s Moved On From Tracking Elon Musk appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.