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Miami Herald
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Russia's Neighbor Responds to Reports Oreshnik Missile Broke Down Midflight
Kazakh authorities are investigating the "appearance of unidentified objects in the sky," the country's defense ministry said said, after unverified footage widely circulated on social media claiming to show a botched launch of Moscow's experimental Oreshnik missile. Russia fired its Oreshnik missile for the first time at Ukraine in November, targeting a Ukrainian military site in the central city of Dnipro. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the missile as a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), able to travel long distances at 10 times the speed of sound, or Mach 10. Ukrainian authorities initially reported Moscow had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and had travelled up to Mach 11. The Pentagon later said the missile was modeled on Russia's RS-26 Rubezh ICBM. Moscow said the missile was impossible to intercept and able to carry nuclear warheads. Footage showed the missile carried six warheads which slammed into different targets close to one another in Dnipro. Ukraine on Sunday launched coordinated drone attacks on multiple Russian airbases across the country, with one official claiming to have destroyed 13 Russian aircraft. Other reports said as many as 41 aircraft were destroyed or damaged in the attack dubbed "Russia's Pearl Harbor' by pro-Moscow military bloggers. Satellite imagery from the Siberian air base of Belaya and Olenya, an Arctic base in Murmansk—just two of the bases targeted in "Operation Spiderweb"—showed several destroyed Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers. Ukraine has been anticipating a potent Russian response to the drone strikes on its airfields, former Ukrainian security service officer Ivan Stupak previously told Newsweek, suggesting Moscow could opt to launch one of its fearsome Oreshnik missiles. Pro-Ukrainian and Kremlin-supporting accounts speculated from late Thursday that footage widely shared online showed an Oreshnik missile malfunctioning over Kazakhstan, although the claims have been met with skepticism by analysts. Ukraine said in November the Oreshnik was fired from the Kapustin Yar range in Russia's Astrakhan region, immediately west of Kazakhstan and closer to Ukraine than the former Soviet republic. "The observed trajectory of the debris would be highly unusual for an IRBM launch against a target in Ukraine," making it unlikely to be an Oreshnik, Fabian Hoffmann, research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo, Norway, told Newsweek. The Kazakh Defense Ministry said late on Thursday the country's airspace had not been violated, adding relevant authorities were "studying this phenomenon and will provide clarification" about "unidentified objects in the sky." The clips circulating on social media show something "similar to the remains of debris from a spacecraft entering the atmosphere or a meteorite stream," the Kazakh government added. "As a rule, they all burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere, before reaching the earth's surface." Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email. Russia launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine overnight, activating air alerts in all of Ukraine's regions, according to domestic media. Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia fired more than 400 drones and over 40 missiles — including ballistic missiles — at the country, injuring at least 49 people. Ukraine's state emergency service said three of its employees had been killed overnight. Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said four people had died in the capital. "An Oreshnik missile might have been added as a special demonstration of Russian strike power in response to the destruction of Russian bombers by Ukrainian drones," said David Hambling, a U.K.-based weapons and technology expert. "However, the evidence is all circumstantial, and the location and pattern of objects makes it difficult to confirm claims that this was an Oreshnik launched from the Kapustin Yar site in Astrakhan rather than or re-entering space debris, or simply a meteor," Hambling told Newsweek. Ukraine's military separately said on Friday it had struck Russia's Engels airbase and the Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan overnight. Ukraine also targeted Dyagilevo in "Operation Spiderweb" on Sunday. The Kremlin targeted Ukrainian cities and civilians in retaliation for Kyiv's audacious drone raid on multiple Russian airbases on Sunday, Ukraine's foreignminister, Andrii Sybiha, said in a post to social media on Friday. Analyst David Hambling told Newsweek: "Whether this is a a failed Oreshnik or Russia lacks the resources or confidence to launch one, it shows that Russia has no good answer to Ukraine's highly effective drone strikes on their territory." Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to respond to Ukraine's large-scale drone strike on military aircraft, according to Donald Trump, though the nature and scale of such a response remains unclear. Related Articles Russia Reacts to Trump 'Young Children Fighting' CommentUkraine Braces for Putin's RetaliationWelcome to the Age of Dumb Kissinger | OpinionTrump Set to Square Off With New German Chancellor Merz on Trade, Ukraine 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Ukraine remains dependent on US Patriot missiles
A series of Russian ballistic missile attacks on Ukrainian cities have killed dozens of civilians in recent weeks, shaking an already uneasy sense of safety for Ukrainians living far from the front lines. The Russian strikes are growing more lethal as foreign air defense aid to Ukraine has dwindled, particularly deliveries of Patriot missiles. Ukraine is left struggling to cover the shortfall. Ukraine's ability to shoot down inbound Russian drones and cruise missiles has grown enormously since Russia's full-scale invasion. But despite ingenuity in domestic weapon production over the past three years, Ukraine has no homemade equivalent to the Patriot, a U.S.-made surface-to-air missile system whose latest iterations are uniquely good at stopping ballistic missiles in flight. Ukraine's local missile makers are working through a long list of demands on their production, while also finding their factories under frequent Russian aerial strikes. Before February 2022, Ukrainian aerospace engineers were reconfiguring their leftover Soviet air defense batteries for the next generation of threats. Like the stocks of Patriot missiles, those systems are also running low on ammunition, and their designers are prioritizing building cruise and ballistic missiles over anti-ballistic air defense missiles. Ukraine is consequently unlikely to field strong anti-ballistic missile defenses of its own any time soon. The only near-term solution to Russia's increasingly aggressive ballistic attacks remains the delivery of more Patriot missiles from allied nations. Ballistic missiles are among the toughest challenges that any air defense system faces. They fly in high parabolas far from the Earth's surface, coming down at several times the speed of sound to strike their targets. Intercepting ballistic missiles in their flight paths requires precision both in detection of incoming missiles and in the launch and targeting of outgoing air defense missiles. Cruise missiles and drones fly slower and nearer to the ground, giving ground-based air defense more time to hit them out of the sky. 'There's a big difference between ballistic missile defense and missile defense targeted at air-breathing threats like drones and cruise missiles,' said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile specialist at the Oslo Nuclear Project. 'Airbreathing' refers to aircraft with jet engines that take in oxygen as they fly at relatively low altitudes. 'For ballistic missile defense, there simply is no shortcut.' Much of the weaponry American arms makers have sent to Ukraine has fallen short on the battlefield. Missile defense systems are a major exception, particularly when it comes to fending off ballistic threats like Russian Kinzhals and Iskanders. 'The Americans mastered that technology because they had to,' said Hoffmann. 'The U.S., after the Cold War, operated under the assumption that it would always have air dominance near where it fought. That means the only credible airborne threat you really have to worry about is standoff munitions like ballistic and cruise missiles.' Under President Donald Trump, the U.S. has slowed down air defense aid to Ukraine. The last major shipment of Patriot equipment was the week following Trump's inauguration — 90 missiles redirected from Israel. Another Patriot system from Israel is currently being refurbished after almost a year of back-and-forth, but U.S. standards of 'refurbishment' have famously held up much simpler deliveries like armored vehicles for months. Ukraine guards details about its missile programs in general and air defenses in particular extremely closely. But by the figures available, the situation is growing dire. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte lamented that almost all the Patriots promised to Ukraine were already there as of the middle of April. The Defense Department declined to provide specifics as to remaining Patriot deliveries. A spokesperson told the Kyiv Independent that "the Defense Department continues to provide equipment to Ukraine from previously authorized PDA and USAI packages.' EU countries that had previously shared their Patriots more generously with Ukraine have run through much of their own stockpiles and are now buying up new missiles. Russia has at the same time radically stepped up its own ballistic missile production. While Ukraine claimed Russia was running out of Iskanders early in the war, production has rebounded to 'between 40 and 50 Iskanders per month,' Andriy Yusov, a representative of Ukraine's Main Intelligence Directorate, said in December. Russia is launching more of those Iskanders as Ukraine has gotten worse at deflecting them. The numbers reported by the Ukrainian Air Force show a major drop off in the effectiveness of air defense against ballistic missiles in recent months. They tally a total of 22 ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine throughout April, mostly Iskanders. The Air Force reported that air defenses shot down eight, seven of which were in a mass attack on Kyiv, the best-defended city in the country. That attack still saw four missiles touch down, killing 12 civilians and injuring another 87. Other Russian attacks used Iskanders with cluster munitions to kill 20 in Kryvyi Rih on April 4 and 34 in Sumy on April 13. Another strike on Kyiv killed two and injured eight on the night of May 6. The new vulnerability is acutely felt among Ukrainians who had previously relied on stronger protections in cities far from the front. Ukraine is working to shield itself from the increasingly brazen Russian strikes on civilians. President Zelensky is haggling for Patriot systems with money he doesn't have. Ukraine also cannot bootstrap a modern Patriot system or PAC-3 missiles of its own at home. 'Developing SAM (surface-to-air) systems is expensive and time-consuming,' says Michael Duitsman, a missile expert at the Middlebury Institute's James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies. 'SAMs are a system of systems — missiles, launchers, radars, computers, software, user interfaces, etc. Each of those components needs to be developed, prototyped, and tested, and all of them must mesh together and perform reliably against hostile forces in adverse conditions. This can involve years of testing and debugging.' Domestic Ukrainian air defense is dominated by leftover Soviet SAM missile launchers, especially S-200s and S-300s. Post-Soviet Russia upgraded the S-300s to S-400s, which are supposedly better at shooting down ballistic missiles. But an S-500 that, as proposed, more closely resembles the newest Patriots has remained under development for years. Chief of the General Staff of Russia's Armed Forces Valeriy Gerasimov announced the first S-500 division in December. The only known footage emerged days later. Ukraine was already at work on an S-300 upgrade of its own called the SD-300 before the war. Per a since-removed 2021 flyer from Design Bureau Luch, the envisioned system still had a warhead, meaning it still relies on fragmentary explosions that the newest and best anti-ballistic defenses have moved away from. The physical hardware of these anti-ballistic missiles takes years to build out. But improvements in software, particularly in algorithms predicting the trajectory of incoming ballistic attacks, would be a cheaper way of boosting S-300 effectiveness, as would more imports of advanced radar systems. But Ukraine is also running low on ammunition for its SAMP-T and S-300 systems, as well as Patriots. The factories that would, pre-war, have been best equipped to build out more ammunition or upgrades for these S-300s find themselves prime targets for Russian air attacks. Ukraine is, for now, trapped in a vicious cycle in which it needs air defense to protect the factories where it can build more air defense missiles of its own. They are also the same factories working on Ukraine's own cruise and ballistic missiles — namely the Neptune and Hrim-2 — which have taken priority since the war's outset. Hoffmann, for one, sees domestic anti-ballistic defenses as being far out of range for Ukraine's wartime research and development relative to other, cheaper drone and missile development. 'If the Ukrainians start investing in indigenous BMD (ballistic missile defense), I'll eat my shoe,' said Hoffmann. 'That would not be worth it from an opportunity cost perspective.' Ukraine consequently continues to bank on the West to provide more Patriot missiles. There are two main species of Patriot missiles critical to Ukraine today, PAC-2s and PAC-3s. Raytheon makes Patriot ground systems, launchers, and PAC-2 missiles, which are primarily for shooting down cruise missiles. Lockheed Martin makes the PAC-3 missiles, which are, to all appearances, the best anti-ballistic defense on the international market, particularly the newest Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) models. The Ukrainian Air Force wrote early in April that since the start of the full-scale war, they had shot down 90 ballistic missiles and 40 Kinzhals, classified as 'aeroballistics.' Other air defense units in Ukraine include Soviet S-300s, Norwegian NASAMS, German Iris-Ts, and the French-Italian SAMP/T, the land-based system from Aster, and likely the closest competitor to the newest Patriots. PAC-3s are uniquely designed to 'hit to kill.' Traditional air defense missiles are shot into the sky to explode, sending shrapnel into adjacent incoming planes, drones, or missiles. Hit-to-kill missiles like the PAC-3 destroy their targets by physically flying into them. A deck that Lockheed Martin provided to the Kyiv Independent touts that hit-to-kill attacks are far better at destroying not just the missile, but the explosives or even chemical charges that a missile is carrying. The company also says explosive air defense doesn't change the flight path of ballistic missiles, leaving debris to fall more or less where it was initially heading. In a statement, Lockheed Martin wrote to the Kyiv Independent: 'PAC-3 Hit-to-kill technology encompasses advanced software and hardware components, including the seeker, a highly responsive airframe, agile control system, and guidance software. All components are necessary to achieve hit-to-kill capability.' Without explosives, a PAC-3 is much smaller, lighter, and more maneuverable than a PAC-2. As a result, a standard Patriot launcher can fit 16 PAC-3s at once, as compared to four PAC-2s. The precision targeting technology required for hit-to-kill is new. PAC-3s came under development when PAC-2s largely failed against Iraq's arsenal of Soviet-made SCUD ballistic missiles in the first Gulf War. The embarrassment of those encounters prompted a new design that took a decade and a half to make operational. To date, the U.S. is the only exporter of 'hit-to-kill' technology in the world. China's HQ-19 seems to use something similar, but public information is limited. The Chinese government announced a successful anti-ballistic test in 2022 but has remained quiet about details. Russia, meanwhile, has the same S-300s as Ukraine as well as upgraded S-400s that Ukraine does not have. The Russian defense industry is working on the S-500 but has yet to properly field them. Ukraine can similarly tinker with its stockpiles of S-300s, particularly with updated software and radar systems. But ammunition for those weapons is also running perilously low. The PAC-3 MSEs boast two critical features. One is that they are uniquely effective at shooting down Russian ballistic missiles, as their time in Ukraine has demonstrated. Thanks to this success, countries across Europe and the Middle East are petitioning the U.S. government to buy progressively more, with Germany getting the go-ahead for an unprecedented $5 billion purchase back in August. The second critical feature of PAC-3s is that they are produced en masse, at a scale that is growing thanks to their performance in Ukraine and an increasing number of nations ordering them to defend themselves from ballistic missile attacks. Lockheed Martin is planning to expand production from 500 to 650 annually. Multinational European missile maker MBDA has gotten the go-ahead to build the first manufacturing for Patriots outside of the U.S. New production of Patriot missiles will, however, take years to build out. Largely thanks to their performance in Ukraine, a glut of new Patriot missiles should be going around in two years. Meanwhile, Ukrainian air defense remains largely dependent on foreign donations of missiles, whose supply is stretched thin worldwide. Hi there, this is Kollen, the author of this article. Thanks for reading. Ukrainians' responses to Russia's invasion showcase a society that is deeply resilient and inventive, despite pullbacks in aid. If you like reading stories highlighting the development of Ukraine's wartime technology and economy from on the ground, please consider supporting our work by of the Kyiv Independent. Read also: Ukraine's long-suffering aerospace giants look to Europe to break free from Russian orbit We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Euronews
21-03-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Could another European country develop its own nuclear weapons?
ADVERTISEMENT 'Poland must pursue the most advanced capabilities, including nuclear and modern unconventional weapons,' Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told his country's parliament earlier this month. 'This is a serious race — a race for security, not for war.' Coming as the Trump administration signalled it is essentially pulling back from protecting Europe, Tusk's statement seemed to suggest a potential lurch toward nuclear weapons proliferation in Europe — something at odds with decades of European policy. While questions remain over the US' ongoing commitment to its role as Europe's nuclear security guarantor, China is expanding its nuclear arsenal. And Russia, which maintains the world's largest stockpile of warheads, repeatedly invokes the threat of using them to warn NATO and the EU against getting directly militarily involved in Ukraine. The overall picture raises two difficult questions. How can Europe maintain a continent-wide nuclear deterrent? And is there a possibility that other countries will join the nuclear club? Although some European states have some of the elements required to develop independent nuclear weapons capability, experts say the chances of another European state going nuclear are slim. Starting from scratch According to Fabian Rene Hoffmann, a research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, even if one of Europe's NATO powers were keen to develop its own nuclear weapons rather than simply hosting them, it would find itself at a standing start. 'The major issue European countries are facing is that they either don't deploy the civilian nuclear infrastructure to launch a nuclear weapons programme, or, if they have civilian nuclear infrastructure, that it is highly 'proliferation-resistant',' he told Euronews. 'For example, Finland and Sweden only have light-water reactors, which are not suitable for the production of weapons-grade plutonium. In addition, neither of those countries have chemical reprocessing plants that are needed for separating wanted from unwanted isotopes in fissile material production." A view of the Ringhals nuclear power plant in Varberg, Sweden. Bjorn Larsson Rosvall/Adam Ihse "So even if they wanted to launch a nuclear program, they couldn't do so with their existing infrastructure, at least in the short-term. That's the case for all non-nuclear weapon states in Europe with a civilian nuclear programme right now.' Hoffman acknowledged one arguable exception: Germany. 'While it does not deploy significant civilian nuclear infrastructure anymore, it has a large stockpile of highly-enriched uranium for research purposes," he explained. "Theoretically, this stockpile could be repurposed under some effort to create weapons-grade fissile material.' 'But even then it would only be enough for around 5 to 15 nuclear warheads, so it would not be enough to deploy what we call a 'robust' nuclear deterrent." Opening the umbrella Both of Europe's nuclear-armed powers, the UK and France, have big decisions to make about their nuclear futures. As things stand, the UK's limited submarine-based deterrent is facing an uncertain future. The fleet used to carry its missiles is ageing and set to be replaced, and more pressingly still, the missiles themselves are made and stockpiled at a US base, meaning the British deterrent is unusually reliant on the participation of another state. Related China and Russia call for end to nuclear sanctions on Iran Macron says France will order more Rafale fighter jets in nuclear deterrence drive France's deterrent, by contrast, is larger and more independent of NATO, and is not confined to submarines. That means it could potentially be 'forward-deployed' elsewhere in Europe — but as Hoffman explained, this is not as simple an idea as it sounds. ADVERTISEMENT 'Infrastructure would have to be built up in the hosting states, most notably bunkers,' he told Euronews. 'I would also say that forward-deploying French nuclear weapons in Germany wouldn't really make any difference. If at all, they should be forward-deployed to the frontline states' — that is, Russia-facing countries including Poland. His comments come after Poland said it would like US nuclear warheads to be deployed on Polish soil. Out of the shadows After the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Warsaw Pact, Poland was rid of the Soviet nuclear weapons that had been stationed on its territory. Like most European countries, it has since signed up to various international agreements to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Were Poland or another European state to start developing its own nuclear weapons, it would be abandoning a norm that has held sway in the West for three decades. ADVERTISEMENT The highly developed global nuclear non-proliferation regime has long been focused on curtailing the North Korean weapons programme, heading off weapons-grade enrichment in Iran, and preventing uncontrolled international flows of uranium, plutonium, and the components needed to enrich enough of either to create a viable nuclear device. Footage distributed by the Russian Defence Ministry shows a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile being test-fired in northwestern Russia. AP/Russian Defence Ministry Press Service The prospect of a European state developing weapons itself has not been bargained for — but that does not mean an aspiring proliferator would be able to do so under the radar. 'None of the European non-nuclear weapon states would likely be able to secretly proliferate,' Hoffman said. 'Just like anywhere else in the world, nuclear infrastructure and nuclear-related assets in Europe are under the strict safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency, meaning any diversions would most likely be noticed.' That said, the global agencies and monitors tasked with non-proliferation work are being forced to keep up with new technologies that threaten to make illicit proliferation easier. ADVERTISEMENT Going nuclear on the cheap Particularly concerning is additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies has warned that it could help 'create volatile pathways to nuclear capabilities and weapons', with wannabe proliferators potentially able to evade the usual scrutiny by printing hard-to-import components at home. So far, the international nonproliferation effort has largely focused on making it as hard as possible for a country 'going rogue' to develop a weapon — and in a world of 3D printing, artificial intelligence and other rapidly developing technologies, the means by which countries are stopped from proliferating on an illicit basis may have to change. One historic example looms large here. In the mid-20th century, Apartheid South Africa began testing nuclear devices, ultimately producing six warheads that could theoretically be fitted to intercontinental ballistic missiles. Crucially, the country enriched its own weapons-grade uranium with a method called the Helikon vortex separation process, an energy-intensive but relatively cheap method that some experts worry could be used to enrich at least a small quantity of fissile uranium today. ADVERTISEMENT Related Japan skips UN nuclear arms conference to avoid 'wrong message' over US deterrence North Korea to expand nuclear weapons programme, says Kim Jong-un South Africa so far remains the only state in history to have both developed its own nuclear weapons and given them up, abandoning its deterrent and ballistic missile programmes as Apartheid and the Cold War came to an end. But the story of its low-cost proliferation effort is testament to the fact that even with intense international scrutiny of vital dual-use components and radioactive materials, a state determined enough to build a nuclear deterrent could theoretically find a way to do it at home. Whether any of today's European nations would take such a radical step, potentially putting themselves in the same club as North Korea, is another matter — but the behaviour of the US and Russia in the near future may yet be the determining factor.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
‘Nuclear blackmail:' Russia strikes Chornobyl as world leaders gather for Munich Security Conference
Russia attacked Ukraine's decommissioned Chornobyl nuclear power plant on Feb. 14 just as world leaders gathered for the Munich Security Conference — in Moscow's latest nuclear threat against Kyiv. Videos shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky show a drone breaking through Chornobyl's 'sarcophagus,' an international project to cover reactor number four that exploded in 1986 in the most devastating nuclear disaster in history. Zelensky called the drone attack 'a terrorist threat to the whole world.' Without going into details about the attack, a representative for the Chornobyl station called the strike an 'act of terror by Russia.' The strike is likely more signaling on Russia's part. The Munich Security Conference, historically a show of force by NATO, started on Feb. 14. Andriy Yermak, the head of the president's office, wrote, 'The atmosphere (at Munich) right now is such that everyone in Munich is very angry because of this news.' Images of the attack released by Ukraine's security service show that Russia used a long-range Shahed attack drone in the strike, but that damage was limited. The president said that following the attack, higher radiation levels were not detected. 'It's a tiny warhead in the drone,' says Fabian Hoffman, a missile expert at the Oslo Nuclear Project, of the explosion visible in photos. '(Russia) very much knew that this would absolutely not penetrate the meter-thick concrete walls surrounding the reactor, so they knew there would be no radiation leakage,' he said. The sarcophagus surrounding the derelict reactor is not the only defense. 'The blocks also have this concrete shell that gets in the way of some kind of large-scale projection of radioactive waste,' said Olena Lapenko, an energy security specialist at the Dixi Group, a Kyiv-based energy think tank. 'We understand, and they understand, that a single drone is not going to get through to the center of the nuclear block.' 0:00 / 1× As negotiations to end the war pick up steam, Russia may be flexing its muscles. U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky on the phone this week, saying peace talks would start "immediately" and that a ceasefire was in the "not too distant future." Trump's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also came out this week saying that both a return to Ukraine's 2014 borders and NATO accession were unrealistic. The statement caused alarm that the U.S. was making concessions to Russia before negotiations had even begun. Zelensky connected the attack to negotiations, saying, 'Russia carries out such attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure and our cities every night. Russia continues to increase its army. Russia does not change its crazy anti-human state rhetoric. This means that Putin is definitely not preparing for negotiations.' 'There's this wave of information regarding negotiations. I would not rule out that this (attack) is to put pressure on Ukraine,' says Lapenko, who called the attack 'a new wave of nuclear blackmail.' Moscow has deployed various forms of nuclear saber-rattling since the start of the full-scale invasion. It has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to deter Ukraine's allies from assisting it further. In the early days of the invasion, Russian troops occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe's largest nuclear facility — effectively using it as a military base. After nearly three years of campaigns against Ukraine's energy system, Russia also began targeting the infrastructure near the country's nuclear power plants last year, putting their connection with the energy grid at risk. While Ukraine has gotten better at protecting its energy facilities since the attacks began, the strikes against nuclear-connected infrastructure represent a 'change in tactics,' says Lapenko. As Russia struggles with ramping up its missile attacks against Ukraine, it may be looking for any avenue it can to ratchet up the pressure on Kyiv, said Hoffman. 'From a Russian perspective, you really want to bring home this message that Russia still has tools to increase the suffering of the Ukrainian people if they don't settle this conflict soon.' Read also: 'Peace deal can't be signed in Munich' — Zelensky sets out condition for talks with Putin We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
