KYIV, Ukraine (NewsNation Now) — Russian forces shelled, then apparently seized, Europe’s largest nuclear plant early Friday, sparking a fire as they pressed their attack on a crucial energy-producing Ukrainian city and gaining ground in their bid to cut off the country from the sea.
The world’s leading nuclear authorities were concerned — but not panicked — about the damage to the power station, but the assault triggered a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the U.S. Department of Energy activated its nuclear incident response team as a precaution.
Both leaders have urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to “cease its military activities in the area and allow firefighters and emergency responders to access the site,” according to the White House. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Ukranian military announced early Friday that the Russians had captured the plant.
The attack on the eastern city of Enerhodar and its Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant unfolded as the invasion entered its second week and another round of talks between the two sides yielded a tentative agreement to set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and deliver humanitarian aid.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm tweeted that the Zaporizhzhia plant’s reactors were protected by robust containment structures and were being safely shut down.
Russia is continuing its efforts to occupy Ukraine’s second-largest city and two strategic seaports, which the Kremlin claims are threatening Russia. A member of Ukraine’s delegation in talks with Russia said both parties have reached a tentative agreement to organize safe corridors for civilians to evacuate and for humanitarian supplies to be delivered. Russia and Ukraine reached a preliminary understanding that cease-fires will be observed in areas where safe corridors are established, said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy who took part in Thursday’s talks.
On Thursday, Zelenskyy called for Putin to meet with him.
“Sit down with me to negotiate,” he said. “I don’t bite. What are you afraid of?”
U.S. officials say Russia has fired 480 missiles at Ukraine as Russian troops make more progress in the south, but are largely stalled in the north.
With a column of Russian tanks and other vehicles apparently stalled for days outside the capital of Kyiv, fighting continued on multiple fronts across Ukraine.
Russian troops gained control of Kherson on Thursday, the first Ukrainian city to be overcome during the war.
Russia currently has the following cities under siege: Kharkiv, Mariupol, Chernihiv, Enerhodar and Lviv, among others.
In Chernihiv, a city of 280,000 in Ukraine’s north, at least 33 civilians were killed and an additional 18 wounded in a Russian strike, Ukraine’s state emergencies agency said Thursday.
Video taken in the aftermath of the shelling shows firefighters standing in rubble dousing flames with hoses as rescue crews carried at least one person on a stretcher and another helper assisted a person down a ladder.
Smoke spewed from a high-rise building just behind what appeared to be a children’s swing set, according to video released Thursday by the Ukrainian government.
A woman bids a man goodbye after boarding a Lviv bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office says a second round of talks with Russia aimed at stopping the fighting that has sent more than 1 million people fleeing over Ukraine’s borders, has begun in neighboring Belarus, but the two sides appeared to have little common ground. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) 
Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov, left, the Head of the Ukrainian Servant of the People faction Davyd Arakhamia, second left, Adviser to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podoliak, third left, Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, fourth right, Russian Presidential Aide and the head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky, third right behind Fomin, Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin, second right, and Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, greet each other prior to the Russian-Ukrainian talks in the Belavezhskaya Pushcha National Park, close to the Polish-Belarusian border, northward from Brest, Belarus, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (Maxim Guchek/BelTA Pool Photo via AP) 
A shoe covered in blood lies on the floor at an emergency surgery in a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russian forces have seized a strategic Ukrainian seaport and besieged another. Those moves are part of efforts to cut the country off from its coastline even as Moscow said Thursday it was ready for talks to end the fighting. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) 
Andrey Goncharuk, 68, a member of territorial defense, walks in the backyard of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russia renewed its assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city in a pounding that lit up the skyline with balls of fire over populated areas, even as both sides said they were ready to resume talks aimed at stopping the new devastating war in Europe.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) 
IRPIN, UKRAINE – MARCH 1: Ukrainian serviceman patrol on March 1, 2022 in Irpin, Ukraine. Russian forces continued to advance on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as their invasion of its western neighbor entered its sixth day. Intense battles also continue in Ukraine’s other major cities. (Photo by Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images) 
Passengers rush to board a train leaving to Slovakia from the Lviv railway station, in Lviv, west Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russian forces have escalated their attacks on crowded cities in what Ukraine’s leader called a blatant campaign of terror. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) 
In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 3, 2022, a view from the window of a Russian military helicopter as it flies over an undisclosed location in Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP) 
Firefighters extinguish a building of Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) after a rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russia’s assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, continued Wednesday, with a Russian strike hitting the regional police and intelligence headquarters, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service. (AP Photo/Andrew Marienko) 
A neighbor carries a child as he helps a fleeing family across a destroyed bridge on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2. 2022. Russian forces have escalated their attacks on crowded cities in what Ukraine’s leader called a blatant campaign of terror. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) 
Andrey Goncharuk, 68, a member of territorial defense wipes his face in the backyard of a house that was damaged by a Russian airstrike, according to locals, in Gorenka, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russia renewed its assault on Ukraine’s second-largest city in a pounding that lit up the skyline with balls of fire over populated areas, even as both sides said they were ready to resume talks aimed at stopping the new devastating war in Europe. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda) 
Members of civil defense prepare Molotov cocktails in a yard in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. A Ukrainian official says street fighting has broken out in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv. Russian troops also put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country’s south following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia’s invasion. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) 
IRPIN, UKRAINE – MARCH 1: Ukrainian serviceman cross the destroyed bridge on March 1, 2022 in Irpin, Ukraine. Russian forces continued to advance on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv as their invasion of its western neighbor entered its sixth day. Intense battles also continue in Ukraine’s other major cities. (Photo by Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images) 
A building burns after shelling in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. Russia has launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine, hitting cities and bases with airstrikes or shelling. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) 
A man carries combat gear as he leaves Poland to fight in Ukraine, at the border crossing in Medyka, Poland, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber) 
Pro-Ukrainian people hold up placards and wave Ukrainian flags as they shout slogans during a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. Russia renewed its assault Wednesday on Ukraine’s second-largest city in a pounding that lit up the skyline with balls of fire over populated areas, even as both sides said they were ready to resume talks aimed at stopping the new devastating war in Europe. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) 
Women and children, fleeing from Ukraine, sleep at a makeshift shelter in the train station in Przemysl, Poland, Thursday, March 3, 2022. More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in the swiftest refugee exodus in this century, the United Nations said Thursday. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Mariupol, a large city on the Sea of Azov, was encircled by Russian forces.
“Deliberately, for seven days, they have been destroying (Mariupol’s) critical life-support infrastructure. We have no light, water or heat again,” the Mariupol city council said. “Mariupol remains under fire. Women, children and the elderly are suffering. We are being destroyed as a nation. This is genocide of the Ukrainian people.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had knocked out a reserve broadcasting center in the Lysa Hora district, about 4 miles south of the government headquarters. It said unspecified precision weapons were used, and that there were no casualties or damage to residential buildings.
A statement from the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces didn’t address the strikes, saying only that Russian forces were “regrouping” and “trying to reach the northern outskirts” of the city.
To date, at least 249 civilians have died and another 553 have been wounded since the invasion began, according to the latest figures from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. Seventeen of those killed were children.
In the days since the invasion, more than 1 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said.
The tally by the U.N. refugee agency amounts to more than 2% of Ukraine’s population being forced out of the country in seven days. The mass evacuation could be seen in Kharkiv, a city of about 1.5 million people where residents desperate to escape falling shells and bombs crowded the city’s train station and pressed onto trains, not always knowing where they were headed.
The U.S. and its allies have insisted that NATO is a defensive alliance that doesn’t pose a threat to Russia. And the West fears Russia’s invasion is meant to overthrow Ukraine’s government and install a friendly government.
Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance in a Thursday video address.
“We are a people who in a week have destroyed the plans of the enemy,” he said. “They will have no peace here. They will have no food. They will have here not one quiet moment.”
As the invasion grows, Russia is finding itself increasingly isolated economically. The ruble, which has tanked since the invasion, lost a further 15% against the dollar.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Wednesday the creation of Task Force KleptoCapture, a team of federal agents and prosecutors responsible for investigating and prosecuting any violations of new and future sanctions against Russia.
That includes seizing the assets belonging to oligarchs and others who violate the sanctions, and thwarting any efforts to use cryptocurrency to get around sanctions.
