Ukraine’s Kharkiv nuclear facility hit by shelling, fighting makes damage assessment impossible

Kyiv: Ukraine’s nuclear watchdog says that a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv again has come under shelling by Russia and the fighting makes it impossible to assess the damage.

The State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said that the neutron source experimental facility in the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology came under fire Saturday.

Ukrainian authorities have previously reported that Russian shelling damaged buildings at the Kharkiv facility, but there has been no release of radiation.

The newly built neutron source facility is intended for the research and production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial needs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that the nuclear material in the facility is always subcritical and the inventory of radioactive material is very low, reducing the risks of radiation release.

Kharkiv has been besieged by Russian forces since the start of the invasion and has come under repeated shelling of its residential buildings and critical infrastructure.

Ukraine’s nuclear facilities have been threatened by the Russian invasion.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

LVIV, Ukraine — The governor of the Lviv region says a man was detained on suspicion of espionage at the site of one of the two rocket attacks that rattled the city Saturday.

Maksym Kozytskyy said police found the man had recorded a rocket flying toward the target and striking it. Police also found on his telephone photos of checkpoints in the region, which Kozytskyy said had been sent to two Russian telephone numbers.

Rockets hit an oil storage facility and an unspecified industrial facility, wounding at least five people. A thick plume of smoke and towering flames could be seen on Lviv’s outskirts hours after the attacks.

WARSAW, Poland — In a forceful speech in Warsaw denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin and voicing strong support for Ukraine, President Joe Biden also appeared to have a message for his Polish hosts.

Speaking of a “perennial struggle for democracy,” Biden mentioned the rule of law and freedom of the press among the principles that are essential in a free society.

He spoke in a speech attended by President Andrzej Duda and his political allies in the conservative ruling Law and Justice party. Since they won power in 2015, the European Union has accused them of undermining the rule of law in Poland by eroding the independence of the judicial branch of government.

The Polish authorities were also in conflict with Washington last year over legal attempts to silence TVN, a broadcast network owned by U.S. Company Discovery. The aim was to strip Discovery of its control of TVN, which produces independent news programs that are critical of the nationalist government.

Duda late last year vetoed the legislation, but concerns about press freedom in Poland remain due to the government’s use of public media as a party mouthpiece.

Biden also paid homage to Poland’s long struggle for democracy in his speech at the Royal Castle, which like most of Warsaw was destroyed by occupying Nazi German forces during World War II and later rebuilt.

He said Warsaw “holds a sacred place in the history of not only of Europe but humankind’s unending search for freedom. For generations, Warsaw has stood where liberty has been challenged and liberty has prevailed.”

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LVIV, Ukraine — Several rockets struck the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday in what officials say were two separate attacks that occurred the same day President Joe Biden was visiting the capital of Poland, whose border is just 45 miles away.

The powerful explosions frightened a city that had been a haven for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Russian assault on other parts of Ukraine.

The regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyy, said on Facebook that preliminary indications were five people were injured in the first attack but did not specify what the two rockets hit. Hours later, he reported three more explosions outside the city, again with no details.

Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi called the second round of explosions a rocket attack, saying it did significant damage to an unspecified “infrastructure object.”        Lviv had been largely spared since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, although missiles struck an aircraft repair facility near the international airport a week ago.

The back-to-back attacks on Saturday brought a chill to residents and displaced Ukrainians who had seen Lviv as a relatively safe place to rebuild their lives. Home to about 700,000 people before the invasion, the city has absorbed many more.

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LONDON — Britain has seized two jet aircraft belonging to Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler as Western governments seeking to end the war in Ukraine put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin by targeting the luxury lifestyles of his closest supporters.

Treasury Secretary Grant Shapps said Saturday that the two aircraft would be detained “indefinitely” after three-week investigation that had already grounded the planes. The Times of London described the aircraft as a $45 million Bombardier Global 6500 and a $13 million Cessna Citation Latitude.

“Putin’s friends who made millions out of his regime will not enjoy luxuries whilst innocent people die,” Shapps said on Twitter.

The U.K. Froze Shvidler’s U.K. Assets last week as it announced a new round of sanctions on Russian companies and wealthy individuals. Shvidler was sanctioned because of his links to those who have backed the war in Ukraine and because he has profited from his support for the Putin regime, the U.K. Said.

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LVIV, Ukraine — Air raid sirens sounded Saturday afternoon in the western city of Lviv, and governor of the region Maksym Kozytskyy reported “three powerful explosions near Lviv.” Footage shot by The Associated Press showed thick plumes of smoke rising above the city.

Lviv, a city of over 700,000 roughly 70 kilometers (43 miles) east of Ukraine’s border with Poland, has been largely spared from major Russian attacks in recent weeks. Two weeks ago, the Russian forces fired missiles on a military training center near Lviv, which at the time was the most westward target, and killed 35 people.

Since the beginning of the invasion, Lviv has become a safe harbor for some 200,000 displaced Ukrainians.

The explosions Saturday came as U.S. President Joe Biden was wrapping up a visit to neighboring NATO ally Poland in which he told Poland’s president that “ your freedom is ours.”

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WARSAW — President Joe Biden Saturday spent time with Ukrainian refugees in Poland as he wrapped up his four-day visit to Europe, marveling at the spirit of their resolve in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of their homeland.

The president listened intently to young Ukrainian children tell them about their parents. He picked up a young Ukrainian girl in a pink coat, smiling broadly and telling her she reminded him of his own granddaughters.

He also held hands and gave hugs to their parents, as he heard their stories during a visit to a stadium in Warsaw where Ukrainian refugees go to obtain a Polish identification number that gives them access to social services such as health care and schools.

Some of the women and children told Biden that they fled for Poland without their husbands and fathers, men of fighting age that were required to remain behind to assist in the fight against Russian forces.

“What I am always surprised by is the depth and strength of the human spirit,” Biden told reporters after his conversations. “Each one of those children said something to the effect of Say a prayer for my dad or grandfather or my brother.’”

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WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s President Andrzej Duda welcomed President Joe Biden’s assurances while visiting the Polish capital Saturday that NATO would guarantee his country’s security.

He said the assurances were all the more important as Russia is carrying out brutal assaults in Ukraine, just across Poland’s eastern border.

“I think that for us Poles, in the situation we have today, in our part of Europe, in the era of Russian aggression against Ukraine, this is a very important element,” Duda said.

Duda, speaking after meeting Biden, said that he also urged the United States to speed up its planned delivery of weapons to Poland.

Duda noted that under contracts already concluded with the U.S., Poland is set to receive Patriot missile sets, artillery rocket launchers, F-35 fighter jets and 250 Abrams tanks.

“I asked the U.S. President, Joe Biden, to accelerate, as much as possible, those purchasing programs that are already being implemented in order to strengthen our security,” the Polish leader said.

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A Winona, Minnesota man taken into custody by Russian forces in Ukraine has been released, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said.

Tyler Jacob had been detained earlier this month while trying to cross from Ukraine into Turkey. Klobuchar said she reached out to the U.S. State Department and connected with John Sullivan, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, who discussed the situation with the Russian government.

The 28-year-old Jacob went to Ukraine in November, where he took a job teaching English to be with his longtime girlfriend, a Ukrainian, the Star Tribune reported. The couple married in January and lived in Kherson, a southern port on the Black Sea. Jacob stayed even after Russia invaded last month, but finally decided he should try to get out.

Along with some friends from Turkey, he got on a bus headed for the Turkish border but was taken into custody at a checkpoint in Armiansk.

Jacob is now safe with his wife and daughter and they are all planning to travel to Minnesota. The family declined to elaborate on the circumstances of Jacob’s detainment.

AP