Latest news with #Russian-run
Euronews
3 days ago
- Politics
- Euronews
Russia creates 'catalogue' of Ukrainian children for adoption
Russia-installed occupation authorities in Ukraine's Luhansk region created an online 'catalogue' of Ukrainian children, offering them for coerced 'adoption' through the education department. The database includes 294 Ukrainian children, who are sorted and categorised so that the users can 'filter' them by age, gender and physical traits, like eyes and hair colour. The children are advertised for their character traits, with some described as "obedient" or "calm". In numerous cases, the children are described as 'polite and respectful towards the adults', 'disciplined' and 'not conflictive' or 'can be relied on to execute tasks'. Users can also 'filter' the search by the preferred form of guardianship, such as adoption or foster care. The Russian-run database describes the children listed in the database as 'orphans and children left without parental care'. Mykola Kuleba, CEO of the Save Ukraine organisation, said most of the children from this 'catalogue' were born in Ukraine's Luhansk region before Russia occupied it and had Ukrainian citizenship. 'Parents of some of them were killed by occupation authorities, others were simply issued Russian identification documents to legitimise their abduction.' Kuleba said that many children who grew up in territories occupied since Russia's first invasion of 2014, including Crimea and parts of eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, have been 'systematically deported and transferred to Russian families in Moscow and other Russian regions.' 'This isn't a new tactic. Since 2014, Ukrainian children have appeared in Russian adoption databases. However, since 2022, the practice has become widespread and systematic', Kuleba said on X. He added that initially Russian authorities tried to cover their tracks, shutting down registers and erasing references, but 'now, the pretence is gone'. 'Russia isn't even trying to hide it anymore. Ukrainian orphans are displayed like products in an online marketplace'. Kuleba called it 'state-sponsored child trafficking', adding that Russian authorities have updated the laws to be able to alter the children's surnames and birthdays. The head of Save Ukraine organisation said Russia has 'streamlined' the system to such an extent that 'a Ukrainian child can now be effectively 'ordered' online' and 'stripped of their identity, issued a Russian passport, and subjected to ideological control' with a single click. Kuleba also issued a stark warning that the platform exposes the children to significant dangers, including sexual exploitation, human trafficking, illegal adoption and trafficking for organ harvesting. Forceful deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia Ukraine has been able to verify Russia's deportation of over 19,500 children to date. These are the children for whom detailed information has been collected — their place of residence in Ukraine and their territorial location in Russia are known. Only over 1,350 have been returned, and each return is mediated by a third-party state, notably by Qatar, South Africa and the Vatican. The actual figure is likely to be much higher. Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab placed the number of deported Ukrainian children closer to 35,000. Moscow claimed that the number could be as high as 700,000. The US-based Institute for the Study of War think tank (ISW) stated that stealing the children was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's priorities, referring to the revelations of Ukrainian human rights activists. The ISW uncovered Kremlin documents dated 18 February 2022, which laid out plans to remove Ukrainian children from orphanages in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions and bring them to Russia under the guise of 'humanitarian evacuations'. During the Istanbul talks between Ukraine and Russia, Kyiv delegation handed over to Russia a list of its forcefully deported children. Kyiv wants Moscow to return them to Ukraine, reiterating its commitment to bring the forcefully deported children back as one of the key aspects of a possible ceasefire and a peace deal in the long term. 'If Russia is genuinely committed to a peace process, the return of at least half the children on this list is positive," head of the Ukrainian delegation Rustem Umerov said. The Russian delegation chief Vladimir Medinsky showed the list, which contains the names of 339 abducted Ukrainian children. The Kremlin representative accused Ukraine of "staging a show on the topic of lost children aimed at kind-hearted Europeans." In his words, Kyiv is trying to "squeeze out a tear by raising this issue." Euronews sources familiar with this aspect of the negotiations say Moscow knows exactly where every child on that list is.
Axios
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Axios
The William Westerfeld House is a haunted time capsule
It may not officially be spooky season yet, but it is year-round at the William Westerfeld House, a historical haunted gem near Alamo Square. State of play: The more-than-a-century-old gothic Victorian at 1198 Fulton St. has been the site of a Czarist Russian-run brothel and social club, jazz-era flophouse, psychedelic-using hippie commune and host to occult film sets and rumored satanic rituals, earning it an eerie reputation. Catch up quick: The 28-room mansion was built in 1889 by local architect Henry Geilfuss for the affluent German baker and confectioner William Westerfeld, who was in poor health when he died there just a few years later. The intrigue: The house is colloquially referred to as "The Russian Embassy," earning the moniker after Russian émigrés purchased it in the late 1920s and turned the ballroom into a club called "Dark Eyes" for social gatherings. It later belonged to various owners, including The Palace Hotel architect John Mahoney and underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger, who regularly hosted friends like Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey. Today, gothic enthusiast Jim Siegel owns the house and has restored its original Victorian flourishes with the hope it can become a museum one day.
NDTV
26-07-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Russia Using Kidnapped Ukrainian Children As Soldiers: Top Zelensky Aide
Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting Ukrainian children during its ongoing invasion and forcing them into military service once they turn 18, sending them to fight against their own people. Kyiv says the disturbing practice is part of a coordinated, state-driven plan approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Ukrainian forces were now encountering these young men on the frontlines, according to a report in The New York Post. Many were taken as minors and subjected to years of ideological indoctrination and military training in occupied territories, Mr Yermak said. One such case is that of 19-year-old Vlad Rudenko, who shared his ordeal with The Times of London. He recalled being subjected to daily routines that included singing the Russian national anthem, undergoing intense physical drills such as jumping, squatting, running and crawling, along with firearms training. He explained that teenagers were subjected to different levels of training depending on their age. 'The 16- and 17-year-olds were given dummy rifles and the older ones used live ammunition,' he said. Rudenko was reportedly just 16 when Russian forces picked him at gunpoint during their occupation of Kherson in October 2022. He was taken to Crimea, where he spent three years in a re-education facility. Eventually, with help from his mother, he escaped and made his way back across the frontlines. Mr Yermak condemned the actions as part of a broader campaign by Moscow, calling it the work of a 'terroristic regime.' According to him, the scheme serves a dual purpose: to replenish Russia's dwindling military ranks and to psychologically devastate Ukrainian troops by forcing them to fight against their own kin. 'The Russians want to destroy the new generation of the Ukrainians, and they are building new soldiers against the country where they were born. It is terrible,' Mr Yermak said. 'Putin's goal is [that] he doesn't want Ukraine to exist.' The scale of the operation has drawn international scrutiny. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab, which has partnered with Kyiv to trace missing Ukrainian children, has documented dozens of Russian-run indoctrination camps, reported The New York Post. In these camps, children are immersed in Russian culture, forbidden from speaking Ukrainian, and shaped into what the Kremlin calls 'ideal citizens.' Some have been paraded on Russian state television, including a Mariupol boy reportedly adopted by Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for President Putin in 2023, citing child abductions as a central charge. The Kremlin has denied wrongdoing, but human rights groups continue to raise alarm over the long-term consequences of such forced conscription.
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ukraine ‘one step away from nuclear meltdown'
Ukraine has been left 'one step away' from catastrophic nuclear meltdowns because of Russian bombardments of its atomic power stations, the nation's energy minister has warned. Missile attacks on the three nuclear power stations left under Ukrainian control, as well as their associated substations, cables and cooling equipment, are putting Europe at risk of a cloud of nuclear radiation escaping into the atmosphere, according to German Galushchenko, who oversees Ukraine's energy systems. 'Russia has been attacking the substations supplying independent cooling power to the nuclear station. So when there is destruction of these power supplies, the nuclear units go into an emergency shutdown regime,' he said. 'The electricity for cooling then has to be supplied by a reserve diesel generator – but this is dangerous [because reserve generators can fail]. 'We have been one step short of a nuclear meltdown many times now.' Mr Galushchenko's warning came after attending a global energy summit in London last week, where he compared the potential impact of such a meltdown with Japan's nuclear catastrophe of 2011, when an earthquake severed the back-up power lines to the Fukushima nuclear power station. Fukushima's back-up diesel generators were then destroyed by a tsunami linked to the same earthquake, meaning there was no reserve cooling power. The result was an explosion and release of a giant radiation cloud. Mr Galushchenko warned that Russian bombardments of Ukraine's nuclear stations risked triggering exactly the same train of events – and has raised his concerns in confidential warnings to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He and his staff have even begun holding training exercises to deal with such an event, using weather and wind forecasts to work out which parts of Europe could be affected. 'Each time it depends on, on the humidity and the winds as to how far this cloud of radiation could go, but they include central Europe, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and of course Ukraine. It's a horrible story,' he said. Europe has already experienced two such disasters. An explosion at the Russian-run Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine in 1986 sent a plume of radioactivity across Western Europe including the UK. Rainfall then deposited radioactive dust across upland areas of Wales, Cumbria, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where grazing sheep became so radioactive they were deemed too dangerous to eat. A similar disaster occurred at the UK's own Windscale plant – now renamed Sellafield – in 1957 contaminating much of northern England, and forcing a ban on milk production because it had become radioactive. Ukraine has four nuclear power plants with a total of 15 operating reactors, plus adjacent stockpiles of used fuel rods and other radioactive waste. Two are in the west – Khmelnytskyi and Rivne – while the third is in the South, north of Odesa and nearer the front lines. Zaporizhzhia, the furthest east, has already been captured by the Russians, but is still close to the front lines with multiple reports of drone and artillery attacks around the reactors and waste stores. The IAEA has issued multiple warnings about the risk of a nuclear disaster caused by the Ukraine conflict, reporting drone attacks on the south Ukraine plant and another at Zaporizhzhia that punched a hole in a radioactive waste store. It has also been co-ordinating deliveries of safety equipment from across the EU and the UK in preparation for any disaster, warning two weeks ago: 'At Ukraine's nuclear sites, frequent air raid alarms and the sound of explosions in the distance continued to highlight persistent risks to nuclear safety.' On Thursday, Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general, issued a further warning. 'What was once virtually unimaginable – evidence of military action in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility – has become a near daily occurrence and a regular part of life at Europe's largest nuclear power plant,' he said. 'From a nuclear safety perspective, this is clearly not a sustainable situation. We are doing everything we can to prevent a nuclear accident during this tragic war,' Mr Galushchenko has told the IAEA that Russia's attacks are setting the stage for a European-wide nuclear catastrophe – and that such an event would also risk killing off any hopes of a renaissance for nuclear energy in Europe. 'I have discussed this many times with the IAEA's board of governors where there is a Russian delegate also present, but the Russians always say that nuclear power stations are legitimate targets,' he said. 'We are here [in London] to discuss the global renaissance of the nuclear industry because it is low-carbon energy. But if an accident like this happens it could stop the renaissance. Totally stop. 'So this is an issue not just for Ukraine – it's a game of fire which the Russians are playing.' Mr Galushchenko, 51, trained as a lawyer and economist before becoming Ukraine's energy minister in 2021, prior to Russia's invasion. Unlike his boss, Volodymyr Zelensky, he makes a point of wearing immaculate suits to international meetings – but he also has come too close to the conflict for comfort. 'We were visiting a power site for one meeting and delayed the time by half an hour [for security reasons] and the venue was hit by a missile. We were so lucky,' he said. 'The Russians mostly use ballistic missiles, and there is very short time between launching and impact – they are very quick. So there is often no chance to run.' Others have not been so lucky. 'We have had more than 160 of our energy staff killed and more than 300 wounded, when they are doing their jobs,' Mr Galushchenko added. 'The latest tactic is they attack, wait for us to start repairs and then attack a second time in the same place, knowing that the [civilian] repair brigades are there.' The scale of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure is huge. Since 2022 Russia has seized 18 gigawatts (GW) of Ukraine's original 58GW of power generation capacity. This includes six thermal power plants as well as Zaporizhzhia, which produced 6GW before the war forced it to shut down. Missile and drone attacks have also destroyed the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, near the southern city of Dnipro. Targeted shelling of critical energy infrastructure, which began in the autumn of 2022, means more than 63,000 pieces of energy equipment have been destroyed or damaged including all major high-voltage substations. During the winter of 2022 and early 2023, an average of 3.3m households were without electricity, prompting the UK and Nato allies to send the country thousands of power generators. Such responses have halted the widespread blackouts but the attacks on energy infrastructure are relentless. Compared to the crisis faced by Ukraine and Mr Galushchenko, the problems for the UK – and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, in particular – may seem trivial. But he warns that this could change. Britain, he points out, is massively reliant on a complex network of subsea pipelines and cables. One pipeline alone, the Langeled, connecting Norway to the UK, brings up to a quarter of the UK's gas supplies. For electricity, a network of nine interconnectors bring up to 22pc of our power from European neighbours. Mr Galushchenko warned that an increase in tensions could prompt Russia to attack any of these covertly, leaving the UK instantly at risk of blackouts and gas shortages. 'Russia always uses energy as a weapon. That's obvious from history – it goes back to Soviet Union times,' he said. The energy minister was in the UK with two key messages. His first is a plea to keep the pressure on Russia by maintaining sanctions and not allowing Putin's regime back into the energy sector. His second request is for Britain to help rebuild Ukraine, saying it had already helped greatly by supplying 1,000 generators when war was declared, as well as uranium to keep its reactors fuelled. 'One day this war will be over and we will be thinking about the recovery,' he said. 'That would probably be the biggest rebuilding since the Second World War. And we want British companies to help us rebuild. 'The countries which stayed with Ukraine from the beginning should come first.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Ukraine ‘one step away from nuclear meltdown', warns energy minister
Ukraine has been left 'one step away' from catastrophic nuclear meltdowns because of Russian bombardments of its atomic power stations, the nation's energy minister has warned. Missile attacks on the three nuclear power stations left under Ukrainian control, as well as their associated substations, cables and cooling equipment, are putting Europe at risk of a cloud of nuclear radiation escaping into the atmosphere, according to German Galushchenko, who oversees Ukraine's energy systems. 'Russia has been attacking the substations supplying independent cooling power to the nuclear station. So when there is destruction of these power supplies, the nuclear units go into an emergency shutdown regime,' he said. 'The electricity for cooling then has to be supplied by a reserve diesel generator – but this is dangerous [because reserve generators can fail]. 'We have been one step short of a nuclear meltdown many times now.' Mr Galushchenko's warning came after attending a global energy summit in London last week, where he compared the potential impact of such a meltdown with Japan's nuclear catastrophe of 2011, when an earthquake severed the back-up power lines to the Fukushima nuclear power station. Fukushima's back-up diesel generators were then destroyed by a tsunami linked to the same earthquake, meaning there was no reserve cooling power. The result was an explosion and release of a giant radiation cloud. Mr Galushchenko warned that Russian bombardments of Ukraine's nuclear stations risked triggering exactly the same train of events – and has raised his concerns in confidential warnings to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He and his staff have even begun holding training exercises to deal with such an event, using weather and wind forecasts to work out which parts of Europe could be affected. 'Each time it depends on, on the humidity and the winds as to how far this cloud of radiation could go, but they include central Europe, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia and of course Ukraine. It's a horrible story,' he said. Playing with fire Europe has already experienced two such disasters. An explosion at the Russian-run Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine in 1986 sent a plume of radioactivity across Western Europe including the UK. Rainfall then deposited radioactive dust across upland areas of Wales, Cumbria, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where grazing sheep became so radioactive they were deemed too dangerous to eat. A similar disaster occurred at the UK's own Windscale plant – now renamed Sellafield – in 1957 contaminating much of northern England, and forcing a ban on milk production because it had become radioactive. Ukraine has four nuclear power plants with a total of 15 operating reactors, plus adjacent stockpiles of used fuel rods and other radioactive waste. Two are in the west – Khmelnytskyi and Rivne – while the third is in the South, north of Odesa and nearer the front lines. Zaporizhzhia, the furthest east, has already been captured by the Russians, but is still close to the front lines with multiple reports of drone and artillery attacks around the reactors and waste stores. The IAEA has issued multiple warnings about the risk of a nuclear disaster caused by the Ukraine conflict, reporting drone attacks on the south Ukraine plant and another at Zaporizhzhia that punched a hole in a radioactive waste store. It has also been co-ordinating deliveries of safety equipment from across the EU and the UK in preparation for any disaster, warning two weeks ago: 'At Ukraine's nuclear sites, frequent air raid alarms and the sound of explosions in the distance continued to highlight persistent risks to nuclear safety.' On Thursday, Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general, issued a further warning. 'What was once virtually unimaginable – evidence of military action in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility – has become a near daily occurrence and a regular part of life at Europe's largest nuclear power plant,' he said. 'From a nuclear safety perspective, this is clearly not a sustainable situation. We are doing everything we can to prevent a nuclear accident during this tragic war,' Mr Galushchenko has told the IAEA that Russia's attacks are setting the stage for a European-wide nuclear catastrophe – and that such an event would also risk killing off any hopes of a renaissance for nuclear energy in Europe. 'I have discussed this many times with the IAEA's board of governors where there is a Russian delegate also present, but the Russians always say that nuclear power stations are legitimate targets,' he said. 'We are here [in London] to discuss the global renaissance of the nuclear industry because it is low-carbon energy. But if an accident like this happens it could stop the renaissance. Totally stop. 'So this is an issue not just for Ukraine – it's a game of fire which the Russians are playing.' Relentless attacks Mr Galushchenko, 51, trained as a lawyer and economist before becoming Ukraine's energy minister in 2021, prior to Russia's invasion. Unlike his boss, Volodymyr Zelensky, he makes a point of wearing immaculate suits to international meetings – but he also has come too close to the conflict for comfort. 'We were visiting a power site for one meeting and delayed the time by half an hour [for security reasons] and the venue was hit by a missile. We were so lucky,' he said. 'The Russians mostly use ballistic missiles, and there is very short time between launching and impact – they are very quick. So there is often no chance to run.' Others have not been so lucky. 'We have had more than 160 of our energy staff killed and more than 300 wounded, when they are doing their jobs,' Mr Galushchenko added. 'The latest tactic is they attack, wait for us to start repairs and then attack a second time in the same place, knowing that the [civilian] repair brigades are there.' The scale of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure is huge. Since 2022 Russia has seized 18 gigawatts (GW) of Ukraine's original 58GW of power generation capacity. This includes six thermal power plants as well as Zaporizhzhia, which produced 6GW before the war forced it to shut down. Missile and drone attacks have also destroyed the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant, near the southern city of Dnipro. Targeted shelling of critical energy infrastructure, which began in the autumn of 2022, means more than 63,000 pieces of energy equipment have been destroyed or damaged including all major high-voltage substations. During the winter of 2022 and early 2023, an average of 3.3m households were without electricity, prompting the UK and Nato allies to send the country thousands of power generators. Such responses have halted the widespread blackouts but the attacks on energy infrastructure are relentless. UK vulnerabilities Compared to the crisis faced by Ukraine and Mr Galushchenko, the problems for the UK – and Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, in particular – may seem trivial. But he warns that this could change. Britain, he points out, is massively reliant on a complex network of subsea pipelines and cables. One pipeline alone, the Langeled, connecting Norway to the UK, brings up to a quarter of the UK's gas supplies. For electricity, a network of nine interconnectors bring up to 22pc of our power from European neighbours. Mr Galushchenko warned that an increase in tensions could prompt Russia to attack any of these covertly, leaving the UK instantly at risk of blackouts and gas shortages. 'Russia always uses energy as a weapon. That's obvious from history – it goes back to Soviet Union times,' he said. The energy minister was in the UK with two key messages. His first is a plea to keep the pressure on Russia by maintaining sanctions and not allowing Putin's regime back into the energy sector. His second request is for Britain to help rebuild Ukraine, saying it had already helped greatly by supplying 1,000 generators when war was declared, as well as uranium to keep its reactors fuelled. 'One day this war will be over and we will be thinking about the recovery,' he said. 'That would probably be the biggest rebuilding since the Second World War. And we want British companies to help us rebuild. 'The countries which stayed with Ukraine from the beginning should come first.'
