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re: Children’s Hospital, Nurseries & Schools Destroyed Devastating Attack
Reckless’ Putin Shells Ukraine Nuclear Plant
Russian attack on nuclear power plant condemned by world leaders Zaporizhzhia fire sparks international alarm
Germans Welcome Ukrainian Refugees by Train: 'It could have been us'
'It is terrible': For Ukraine's Jews and Roma, war revives old traumas
Zelensky SLAMS Biden: 'Pity' Good Contact Started When 'End of The World Has Arrived'
BBC News 4 MAR 2022
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant appears to be on fire following shelling.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, shelled by Russia, is important for Europe
World leaders have accused Russia of endangering the safety of an entire continent after its forces shelled a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine.
A fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant - the largest in Europe - after it was attacked by Russia.
Authorities say the facility is now safe and radiation levels are normal.
But UK Prime Minister Boris Jonson said the "reckless" attack could "directly threaten the safety of all of Europe".
US President Joe Biden urged Moscow to stop its military activities around the site, while Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the "horrific attacks" from Russia "must cease immediately". All three leaders spoke to Ukraine's President Zelensky by phone.
Mr Zelensky, meanwhile, accused Russia of resorting to "nuclear terror" and wanting to repeat the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
"If there is an explosion, it is the end of everything. The end of Europe," he said.
A video feed from the nuclear plant showed blasts lighting up the night sky and sending up plumes of smoke.
Workers at the plant said the fire - which has since been extinguished - broke out at a training building outside the plant's perimeter, and that only one of the plant's six reactors were operational.
The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the fire had not affected the plant's "essential" equipment and there was no increase in radiation levels.
But the IAEA said it was in "full 24/7 response mode" due to the "serious situation" at the power station.
Ukrainian emergency services said initially they were blocked from getting to the scene of the blaze, prompting President Biden to publicly call on Russia to allow firefighters into the site.
Boris Johnson said he would seek an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday over the attack.
Experts said attacking a nuclear plant was unprecedented, and the situation was still very dangerous.
Dr Graham Allison, a nuclear security expert at Harvard University, said the "worst-case" would be if a fire at the plant caused a meltdown and prompted a release of radioactivity that contaminated the surrounding area for years.
But he also said it was more likely Russian forces were trying to "close down the supply of electricity to the surrounding area", rather than attack the plant.
The plant, located around 550km (342 miles) south-east of the capital Kyiv, generates almost a quarter of all electricity in Ukraine.
Russian forces have already seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
News of the latest incident at Zaporizhzhia caused share prices in Asia to fall sharply.
In Other Developments:
In the port city of Mariupol in southern Ukraine, residents are without power and water supplies because of relentless Russian shelling
In the north, the cities of Chernihiv and Kharkiv have again come under fire, while there are reports that the city of Sumy has been surrounded by Russian troops
A second round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine agreed to provide humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from conflict zones
More than one million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion began last week.
Despite punishing international sanctions, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said his offensive was going "strictly according to schedule, according to plan".
He has put his nuclear forces on high alert because of "aggressive statements" by the West.
Western ministers will hold crisis talks in Brussels on Friday as they seek to show their support for Ukraine.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called it "one of the biggest days of diplomacy" with allies prepared to "tighten the vice around Putin's war machine" by targeting the Russian economy with more sanctions.
Map showing areas of Ukraine that are under Russian control
Germans Welcome Ukrainian Refugees by Train: 'It could have been us'
In Berlin's central railway station the trains arriving from the east come carrying thousands of refugees every day - men, women and children fleeing Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine.
BBC News 4 MAR 2022
Crowds of people at Berlin station are offering places to arriving refugees
Those who want to head onwards get free train tickets to anywhere in Europe. Those who don't, or don't know where they should go, get ushered down to a cavernous hall.
What they find is a huge operation to welcome them. Food and drink is handed out along with sim cards for phones, and there medical teams, translators, volunteers and organisers to help.
And there's a crowd, hundreds strong, of German families standing there too, offering places in their homes to the refugees. They hold up homemade signs: "Can host two people! Short or long-term," says one. "Big room. One-three people. Children welcome too! For as long as you want," says another.
There's a round of applause as a man with a megaphone asks if anyone can take 13 people - and someone steps forward. A mother is here with her daughter, who can't be more than 12 years old, and holding a sign saying: "One mama, two kids, four-six weeks." Next to her is Margot Baldauf, who is in her 70s, with a blue and yellow board offering: "One room for mother and child."
"I am more or less a child of a refugee," Margot tells me, explaining that her mother - who is still alive and now 97 - had to flee Hitler's Nazis to find sanctuary. "So I feel obliged to do something for refugees. It's not Hitler this time, but for me it somehow feels like what Putin does is what Hitler did before."
Despite the numbers of refugees arriving, it seems there are more than enough German families to take them in.
In a suburb of Berlin, Matina Wardakas and her husband Timmo Kohlery have opened up their home. They have two teenage daughters of their own, and they've just taken in four Ukrainians.
There's Anastasiia, along with her four-year-old son Artemii and her parents-in-law Victoria and Vladimir.
Anastasiia and her son Artemii have made it to Germany, but her husband Dimitrii cannot leave Ukraine
Anastasiia's husband Dimitrii was barred from exiting Ukraine. No men of fighting age can leave the country. It's something she can't explain to her four-year-old son.
"He keeps asking every time about his dad," she says, trembling. "Where is his dad, and when he can he see him? I don't know. I hope soon," Anastasiia says, wiping tears away.
"And my dad, I hope I see him soon too," she adds. Her father is trying to make his way across Ukraine to escape to Germany as well.
But even here the family can't escape the war. Friends in Kharkiv have just sent a message with a video showing damage of Russian bombs to the home they fled a few days ago. "Look, look, our home," they tell me.
To make space for the arrivals, Matina and her husband Timmo, who run an IT company, have moved into one of their children's rooms. Their 13-year-old twin girls, Juna and Joli, are now sharing a bedroom.
"When we started reading the news we said, right away, we need to take someone in, to give someone peace, because it could have been us, this is how we feel," Timmo tells me.
Vladimir Putin's attack on Ukraine has shaken many in Germany who always believed peace was here to stay in Europe.
"We have lived in peace our whole life," Matina says. "We don't know what it is like to live in war, it's shocking. Our first thought was we need to help a family so that they can feel safe. We will give them some peace, in this house."
Nearby four-year-old Artemii is playing happily with a wooden fire truck he's been given. Anastasiia says he thinks it's his birthday because he's had so many gifts.
The host family say their guests are welcome to stay as long as they like. As we leave neighbours come bearing more gifts, a basketful of food for the refugees.
In another neighbourhood of Berlin, we find Tarek Alaows and about a dozen other people loading supplies onto a bus. Tarek is Syrian. He fled the war there six years ago, walking for two months through Europe to reach Germany. Now he's on his way to the Ukrainian border to collect refugees and bring them back.
Tarek, a Syrian refugee, says he wants to help people fleeing war
"I know what is the meaning of fleeing war - that's why I want to help people now," he says.
So Tarek, a refugee from one crisis, is heading to help those from another. He says the common thread running through the wars in Syria and Ukraine is Vladimir Putin's aggression - and the violence that has been unleashed, uprooting so many lives.
Zelensky SLAMS Biden:
'Pity' Good Contact Started When 'End of The World Has Arrived'
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