It S Crazy Ukraine Holds Its Breath As Putin Turns Nuclear Plant Into Front Line Ukraine

The distance between them is seven kilometers. Or, measured in missile terms, about 15 seconds: the time it takes for a Grad missile fired by Russian soldiers holed up in the atomic station to hit the boulevards of Nikopol with ratchets. It is a short and terrifying interval between life and death. The sprawling nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe. In March, Russian forces seized it, as part of Vladimir Putin’s blitzkrieg operation to take over all of Ukraine. They entered the nearby town of Enerhodar and took the local station staff hostage. The plant is now on the front line between Russian-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled territories. Bombed building in Nikopoli. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian In the first phase of the war, Nikopoli was peaceful, a place of safety for refugees from eastern Donbas and other troubled regions. And then, on July 12, Moscow began launching incendiary devices across the river. The Russians are using the nuclear plant as cover. They have mined the complex. Multiple rocket launchers and tanks nestle between the reactors. Even by Putin’s moral standards, it’s an astonishing act of recklessness. In his final speech on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “covert nuclear blackmail”. A “terrorist state”, threatened “the whole world” with Armageddon. He urged the UN and the international community to do something. On Friday, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasil Nebenzia, said the country did not support UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for a demilitarized zone around the nuclear plant. The situation is dangerous. According to Ukraine’s state energy company, Energoatom, Russia has fired at the plant multiple times. The shells landed near the fire station and the director’s office, not far from a radioactive source storage facility. Power lines and a sewage pumping station were damaged. One worker hospitalized, rotating shift canceled. Women waiting in a bomb shelter in Nicopolis. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian Moscow blames Ukrainian artillery and claims it is acting responsibly. Zelensky suggests the Russians are bombing the plant as a deliberate provocation, designed to discredit Kyiv and alienate it from its international partners. The Guardian saw no evidence in Nikopoli of Ukrainian military activity. A few distant knocks were heard. It was not clear which side fired. The Kremlin is trying to do something unprecedented: steal another state’s nuclear reactor. Engineers are working to connect the facility to the power grid in occupied Crimea and cut it off from Ukrainian homes. One reactor has already been shut down. It’s a sinister game of radioactive Russian roulette, set in a country that experienced the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. Before the invasion, 106,000 people lived in Nikopolis. About half have fled. On Thursday more people were packing up to leave after a devastating and vandalistic overnight barrage. Russia fired 120 Grad missiles into the area, killing three people in Nikopoli and 13 in the neighboring town of Marchanets, and injuring dozens, including a 13-year-old girl. All were citizens. An area sealed off around a residential building. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian At number 22 Viktor Usov Street, rescuers were sifting through the debris. A corner had come out of the five-story apartment building, as if some monstrous hand had pierced it. Police had cordoned off the area. The remains of a rocket lay peacefully on a grass bank, broken in two: an engine and a tail section with fins. “It was midnight. The rocket landed in the apartment next to me. We managed to get mom and son out alive. But the aged father, Anatoly, was already dead. It was under 2 meters of concrete,” resident Vitaliy Chornozub told the Guardian. He added: “Russians are fucking pedophiles. They bring pain, dirt and tears. I can’t understand why they did that.” The remains of a rocket. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian Another neighbor, holding a cup of coffee after a sleepless night, offered an explanation. “It’s jealousy,” said Yana Sokolova. “They cannot accept the fact that we live better than them. We are free. Russians are slaves. They want to make us slaves too.” He added: “Putin is a terrorist. We will never surrender. His attempt to intimidate us will not work.” Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Sokolova said she would stay put despite the early morning attacks, which drove some residents out before the evening curfew and to spend the night in tents set up amid sunflower fields. Grad knocked out the Internet connection in Sokolova’s apartment, but did not damage her ground-floor shop, she said. “We are tired. But our boys are standing firm,” he added. Sokolova, next to her ground floor shop. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian It is not clear why Russia launched offensive operations through the nuclear plant and the nearby settlement of Vodiane. One explanation is that Moscow’s grand war is beginning to falter. Six months on, Russian troops have taken over much of the eastern country, including the entire Luhansk region, and part of Donetsk. They run forward, slowly and brutally. To the south, however, Russia suddenly looks vulnerable. Since July, the Ukrainian military has used US Kheimar precision-guided weapons to destroy four key bridges over the Dnieper River. And on Tuesday Kyiv struck deep behind enemy lines, obliterating Saky airfield in western Crimea, destroying at least eight warplanes and forcing thousands to flee back to the Russian mainland. A Ukrainian counterattack seems likely, though not inevitable. Until that happens, Russia can use Enerhodar as a full-scale military base, as it did with Chernobyl during the first six weeks of the conflict. Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom says it is now in charge of the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency requested access and called on the Russians to demilitarize it. Olexsandr Vilkul, head of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian “It’s complete madness from Russia. They know that the Ukrainian army cannot fight back,” said Olexsandr Vilkul, head of the military command in Kryvyi Rih, 40 miles north of Nikopol. Vilkul, a former deputy prime minister in charge of emergencies, said Russia had turned into a “totalitarian sect”, run by a mad dictator obsessed with his place in history. “It’s a strange cult. There is Lenin and victory in the second world war and religious faith in the nuclear arsenal. Their god is the nuclear button,” he said. He added: “Putin doesn’t really care about Russia. He wants to take his place next to Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Stalin.” How would the war end? “Like Hitler, Putin will destroy his country,” he predicted. Further up Ustov Street, another Grad had opened a Lego-like hole in a third-floor apartment. Its owner, Alexsandr Suvorov, said he was at work on his computer at midnight when he heard the sound of an outgoing missile. “I knew they arrived from Enerhodar so I immediately moved into the next room. Suddenly, the door flew past me,” he recalls. Showing photos of the wreckage on his mobile phone, Suvorov said he was extremely lucky. The Guardian met him at the local administration building as he filed a police report. It was unclear when the compensation might be paid or where he might now live. “I would like to leave. It is very dangerous. First I have to get plywood to cover the hole,” he said. Municipal workers try to make a building safe after a rocket. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian Other residents were not so lucky. A rocket fell into a block of flats where most of the tenants were elderly, killing a woman. A crane was parked outside. municipal workers trying to make the building safe threw masonry from a dilapidated upper floor. Three schools and more than 40 private buildings were damaged, as well as cars and shops. “This is the reality we live in. We don’t know if we’ll wake up the next day,” said Anna Sidilova, property manager. “Peaceful people live here. They had no weapons. They just want to live in their homes.” What did he think of Putin? “He should be punished in the same way, according to universal law. He must be deprived of everything he has.” Just across the street a Grad had landed at the Nikopolis Soviet War Memorial. There was a deep crater in the alley of glory, not far from a needle-shaped monument and a wall inscribed with the names of soldiers who fell during World War II. The strike spoke to the ideological hollowness of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, ostensibly carried out to protect Russian speakers and return a strange province to its historic Russian and Soviet roots. A fake grave on the side of the road. Photo: Christopher Cherry/The Guardian No one knows when or how Europe’s bloodiest conflict in 80 years will end. For now, Ukrainians are reacting with disdain, bravery and even humor to the carnage and horror surrounding…