Jellyfish force French nuclear plant shutdown
The swarm of marine creatures clogged the filters of the cooling systems of the plant, the operator said. The 'massive and unpredictable presence of jellyfish' prompted four power units of the facility to automatically shut off. The incident put the entire facility offline, as two other units were already inoperable due to maintenance.
The incident, which occurred late on Sunday, had 'no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment,' the EDF said, adding that the gelatinous creatures made it only to 'the non-nuclear part of the facilities.'
'The plant teams are mobilized and are currently carrying out the necessary diagnostics and interventions to be able to restart the production units safely,' the energy group added.
The nuclear site draws cooling water from a channel linking it to the North Sea, which is home to several jellyfish species. The plant operator did not elaborate on the exact type of jellyfish involved in the incident.
Jellyfish have a long history of disrupting the the work of coastal power plants, repeatedly getting sucked into cooling systems or clogging up intake pipes of nuclear and conventional energy facilities worldwide.
The Gravelines power plant is one of the largest nuclear sites in France, the country that gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear installations. Six units of the facility have a peak production of 900 megawatts each, making the station alone capable of powering an estimated 5 million homes.
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Russia Today
4 days ago
- Russia Today
Jellyfish force French nuclear plant shutdown
A 'massive' swarm of jellyfish prompted the Gravelines nuclear power plant to automatically switch off, the energy group EDF that operates the facility said on Monday. The swarm of marine creatures clogged the filters of the cooling systems of the plant, the operator said. The 'massive and unpredictable presence of jellyfish' prompted four power units of the facility to automatically shut off. The incident put the entire facility offline, as two other units were already inoperable due to maintenance. The incident, which occurred late on Sunday, had 'no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment,' the EDF said, adding that the gelatinous creatures made it only to 'the non-nuclear part of the facilities.' 'The plant teams are mobilized and are currently carrying out the necessary diagnostics and interventions to be able to restart the production units safely,' the energy group added. The nuclear site draws cooling water from a channel linking it to the North Sea, which is home to several jellyfish species. The plant operator did not elaborate on the exact type of jellyfish involved in the incident. Jellyfish have a long history of disrupting the the work of coastal power plants, repeatedly getting sucked into cooling systems or clogging up intake pipes of nuclear and conventional energy facilities worldwide. The Gravelines power plant is one of the largest nuclear sites in France, the country that gets 70% of its electricity from nuclear installations. Six units of the facility have a peak production of 900 megawatts each, making the station alone capable of powering an estimated 5 million homes.
Russia Today
13-07-2025
- Russia Today
Meet the Frenchman who became Russian nobility – and the Russian exile who charmed de Gaulle
'My life – what a novel!' Napoleon is said to have exclaimed. Two lesser-known men might have echoed that sentiment: a French-born Russian named Traversay, and a Russian-born Frenchman named Peshkov. Opposite in origin, parallel in destiny – their lives form a curious symmetry. All but forgotten by modern reference books, Jean-Baptiste de Traversay – known in Russia as Ivan Ivanovich – was among the most capable naval commanders of his era. The Russian version of his name isn't a footnote, but a clue: his story was anything but typical. Born in 1754 to a family of naval officers on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Traversay was just five when he was sent to France. Following family tradition, he studied naval warfare in Rochefort and Brest. For a marquis, the life of a junior officer ferrying cargo between France and the colonies was hardly glamorous. But his fortunes changed in 1778, when France joined the American colonies in their war against Britain. During the American War of Independence, Traversay commanded several captured British ships. After the pivotal Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781, he took charge of the Iris, a vessel the British had previously seized from the Americans. It was the Iris that carried the ceasefire to British-occupied New York. In 1786, at just 32 years old, he was promoted to captain of the first rank. When the French Revolution broke out, Traversay was back in Martinique. As the navy disintegrated, so did his future in France. He fled with his family to Switzerland for safety. He would never again see the palm trees of his childhood. Then came the unexpected twist. While contemplating, perhaps with some disbelief, the Swiss mountains, the lifelong sailor received a surprising invitation – from another French émigré, Admiral Nassau-Siegen, not exactly known as Catherine the Great's finest naval mind. The Russian court was looking for foreign talent, and in 1791 Traversay arrived in Saint Petersburg. Almost immediately, he was made a major general and rear admiral in the Imperial Navy. But his appointment didn't last long. The Russian Navy, eager to emulate the British Royal Navy, soon reinstated its English-born officers. Traversay, once welcomed, was now a redundancy. He was dispatched to Coblenz in the Holy Roman Empire, where French royalist exiles had gathered, to act as a liaison between the empress and the counter-revolutionary forces. It was, in short, a return to dry land – and to tedium. Unsurprisingly, the assignment didn't suit a man who had spent more than two decades at sea. By 1793, he was back in Russia, this time commanding a flotilla at the naval fortress of Rochensalm (modern-day Kotka, Finland). Soon after, he was appointed military governor of the fortress, tasked with guarding against any renewed threat from Sweden. Under Catherine's successors, Paul I and Alexander I, Traversay's stature rose again. In 1802, Alexander promoted him to admiral and placed him in command of the Black Sea Fleet, while also naming him governor of Kherson province. The strategic naval ports of Nikolaev and Sevastopol fell under his authority. His final battle came in 1807, during the Russo-Turkish War, when he and Admiral Pustoshkin led the siege and destruction of Anapa, a fortress on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Traversay's reputation had grown to the point that, following the Franco-Russian treaty of Tilsit in 1807, Napoleon himself invited him to return to France and rebuild the navy. Naval warfare was one of the few arenas in which Napoleon was not at his best. He even asked Traversay to name his conditions. But the marquis refused. His loyalty, by then, belonged entirely to Russia. In 1809, he was recalled to Saint Petersburg to serve as Minister of the Navy. The boy from Martinique, once ferrying cargo across the Atlantic, had risen to the highest level of Russian government. Before Napoleon's invasion in 1812, Traversay had become a subject of the Russian Empire and restructured the Baltic fleet. After the Napoleonic Wars, Russia's economy was in shambles, and the Navy's budget was slashed. The Baltic fleet could no longer train in open waters, and Traversay had to confine operations to the far eastern edge of the Gulf of Finland. The area became known, not without irony, as 'Markizova Luzha' – the Marquis's Puddle. Yet even with limited means, Traversay looked outward. He championed Russian expeditions into the Arctic and Antarctic. Otto von Kotzebue explored the Pacific from Kamchatka to the Sandwich Islands; Bellingshausen discovered and named the Traversay Islands; and Russian expeditions charted the Bering Strait and the Arctic coastline of Alaska. In 1821, already in his late sixties, Traversay asked to retire. Alexander I refused – but allowed him to leave the capital and run naval affairs from his country estate, 120 kilometers outside Saint Petersburg. For the next seven years, Russia's navy would be administered far from any sea. Only under Nicholas I, in 1828, was Traversay finally permitted to step down – after more than 18 years as the empire's highest-ranking naval officer. Just over fifty years after Traversay's death, in another province of the former Russian Empire, a boy was born whose life would follow the same arc – only in reverse. Zinovy Mikhailovich Sverdlov was born in 1884 in Nizhny Novgorod, the eldest son of a relatively well-off Jewish family steeped in revolutionary ideals. His younger brother, Yakov, would become a key figure in Vladimir Lenin's inner circle – widely believed to have played a central role in the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Zinovy, by contrast, was the black sheep. Restless and reckless, he preferred roaming the streets of Nizhny Novgorod and loitering along the Volga to sitting in a classroom. That changed when he met the writer Maxim Gorky, who took the spirited teenager under his wing. As Gorky's secretary, Zinovy followed him across Russia, absorbing his politics, literature, and theatrical experiments – and sharing his brushes with arrest and imprisonment. He also developed a reputation as a charming womanizer. In 1902, Gorky formally adopted him. Zinovy was baptized and took his adoptive father's real surname: Peshkov. With the Russo-Japanese War looming in 1904, Peshkov had little interest in being drafted. So he left – wandering through Finland, England, Sweden, Canada, and then across the Pacific, from San Francisco to New Zealand. In 1907, he reunited with Gorky in Italy. The writer had founded what came to be known as the 'School of Capri' – a quasi-utopian circle of artists, exiles, and revolutionaries who gathered at his villa on the island. Among the regulars were opera star Fyodor Chaliapin and a rising Bolshevik named Vladimir Lenin. It was a formative time for Peshkov. He absorbed ideas, made connections, and observed the revolutionaries up close – remaining, however, immune to Lenin's particular brand of charisma. While on Capri, he married briefly, but domestic life didn't suit him. Peshkov remained, above all, a seeker of adventure – and of women. When World War I broke out in August 1914, Peshkov made a baffling move – one that would define the rest of his life. Though he had no real ties to France, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. Fluent in Russian, French, English, Italian, and German, he was a natural fit for a unit that drew men from across the globe. He was quickly given command of a squad. But his time on the front was short. In May 1915, a bullet shattered his right arm during combat. The only way to save his life was amputation. Decorated for bravery, Corporal Peshkov was formally discharged. But by 1916, he volunteered again – this time 'for the duration of the war.' The battlefield, however, was only the beginning. In Paris, Peshkov caught the attention of Philippe Berthelot, a senior diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Struck by the one-armed legionnaire's charisma and multilingual talents, Berthelot sent him to Washington to assist with French efforts to rally American support for the war. Then came 1917 – and revolution. The French government dispatched a mission to Kerensky's provisional government in Petrograd, hoping to keep Russia in the fight against Germany. Peshkov returned to his homeland, and to Maxim Gorky and his family – staunch supporters of the revolution, unlike him. But soon came the Bolsheviks, the October coup, and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ended the Eastern Front. Paris had no illusions about Lenin's government. Eager to support the anti-Bolshevik cause, France sent its trusted Russian agent to advise the White Armies. Peshkov traveled from one front to another – from Ataman Semenov in Vladivostok to Admiral Kolchak in Siberia to General Wrangel in the Caucasus. But the Red Army, under Trotsky's command, proved unstoppable. Despite his military assignments, Peshkov never quite left behind his taste for pleasure. After the Russian Civil War, he returned from the Caucasus with a new companion – Princess and socialite Salomea Andronikova, who introduced him to the salons of Parisian artists, aristocrats, and intellectuals. But the charms of 1920s Paris were only a brief interlude. In 1922, Peshkov was sent to French Morocco to join Marshal Lyautey, the colony's military commander. Still officially Russian (he would become a French citizen in 1923), he had little formal command experience. Lyautey reportedly said of him: 'He was a great soldier, but never really a military man.' Yet nothing ever seemed to intimidate Peshkov. He was wounded again in battle – this time in the leg – and joked that fate had struck him 'for the sake of symmetry.' His unusual career as a soldier-diplomat grew steadily in North Africa and the Middle East. By the time World War II broke out, he was still posted in the colonies. When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, he made his way to London and joined the Free French forces under Charles de Gaulle. The two men had never met. De Gaulle took his time before assigning Peshkov a mission. First, he sent him to South Africa to coordinate weapons shipments; then to West Africa to rally French colonies to the Free French cause. There remained one continent Peshkov hadn't touched: Asia. De Gaulle sent him to China to meet with Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China, locked in a brutal struggle against both Japanese forces and Communist guerillas. Peshkov impressed his hosts so thoroughly that in 1944 he was appointed French ambassador to China. Two years later, he became ambassador to Japan. The once-rowdy boy from provincial Russia now found himself decorating General Douglas MacArthur with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor – France's highest distinction, created by Napoleon himself. In 1950, Peshkov left Japan and settled permanently in Paris. Two years later, he was himself awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor – France's highest distinction – for a second time. Charles de Gaulle wrote to him: 'You have had a beautiful and noble career, my dear general. As for me, I can assure you that you were the right man at the right moment, wherever duty called. And I will add – you did it with style.' De Gaulle had a deep admiration for the 'magnificent one-armed man,' as Peshkov's soldiers had once called him. When the general returned to power in 1958, he gave the aging diplomat several final missions. The most delicate came in 1964. France had decided to recognize Mao's People's Republic of China – but wished to inform Chiang Kai-shek, in exile on Taiwan, with dignity and respect. Peshkov was the natural choice. Ivan Ivanovich Traversay died in 1831, in Luga near Saint Petersburg. Zinovy Peshkov died in Paris in 1966. Both had served the country of their choice – not for years, but for decades. In this age of renewed suspicion and closed doors, it may be hard to imagine a French admiral building Russia's navy – or a Russian exile representing France before Chiang Kai-shek. And yet, it happened. Not once, but twice. The lives of Jean-Baptiste de Traversay and Zinovy Peshkov remind us that for all the rivalry and political rupture between France and Russia, the ties between the two run deeper than we often care to admit. Across oceans, ideologies, and empires, these two men chose loyalty over birthplace, service over nationhood, and meaning over certainty. Perhaps the past still holds a map to rediscovering what was never fully lost.
Russia Today
05-06-2025
- Russia Today
NATO more powerful than Romans and Napoleon – bloc chief (VIDEO)
NATO is the 'most powerful alliance' in global history, Secretary General Mark Rutte has claimed, comparing the US-led bloc to the Roman Empire and Napoleon's army. Rutte urged member states to ramp up military spending to make NATO even 'more lethal' and better prepared to counter the alleged threat from Russia, which Moscow has long denied and ridiculed. 'NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history. It's even more powerful than the Roman Empire, and more powerful than Napoleon's empire,' Rutte stated at a press conference ahead of the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. 'But the defense alliance needs maintenance and needs investment.' He laid out priorities to strengthen NATO's military, insisting they are essential to deter potential future aggression. 'We must make NATO a stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance… We need more resources, forces, and capabilities so that we are prepared to face any threat,' he added. Rutte claimed that Russia could attack NATO within several years and said the bloc would not be prepared to defend itself unless it moves beyond its long-held 2% of GDP defense spending benchmark. NATO Chief Mark Rutte says the NATO 'defensive alliance' is more powerful than both the Roman Empire and Napoleon's Empire.1. NATO is essentially the US, and a collection of vassal states that submit to Washington's hegemony 2. The Chief of NATO compares the organisation he… Rutte said he would present member states with a new 'defense investment plan' at the upcoming NATO summit in The Hague. Russia has repeatedly rejected claims that it poses a threat to NATO, calling them 'nonsense' and accusing the West of stoking fear to justify more military spending. Moscow has also warned that the West's rearmament efforts risk escalating into a broader conflict in Europe. Russian officials have also drawn their own historical comparisons. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of trying to inflict a 'strategic defeat' on Russia 'just like in the times of Napoleon and Hitler' through its proxy war in Ukraine. He said the only way to avoid a wider conflict is for the West to abandon its militaristic path. Rutte's imperial comparisons have sparked criticism on social media. Media analyst Michael William Lebron, known as Lionel, wrote: 'NATO's chief boasting they're 'more powerful than the Roman or Napoleonic Empires' sounds less like diplomacy and more like 1939 Berlin. This isn't defense – it's imperial arrogance... Dangerous rhetoric.' John Laughland, a historian and specialist in international affairs, pointed out on X that 'The Roman and Napoleonic empires were not alliances, they were states. Or is NATO now an empire?' 'NATO 'Chief' sounds like Uncle Adolf back in 1939,' Irish journalist Chay Bowes added. British journalist Afshin Rattansi also weighed in, saying it's no wonder non-NATO states view the bloc as 'a hyper-militarist threat' after it 'destroyed Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and so many others.' Rattansi called Rutte 'a puppet' of Washington and warned that NATO 'is a dangerous, hyper-militarist organization that is far from defensive.'
