As a Ukrainian city nears ‘humanitarian catastrophe,’ Russians face void of digital information

Computer chip manufacturers, shipping companies and a host of exporters are halting deliveries to Russia to comply with sanctions. Western nations are closing their skies and ports to Russian planes and vessels. European retailers are shuttering shops in Russia, and in one of the biggest blows yet, Microsoft on Friday said it is suspending all new sales in the country.

Russia’s economic integration with the outside world was never smooth and easy. Corruption and lawlessness often throttled industrial development, leaving the country too dependent on exporting its natural resources. The rigged privatization of oil and metals companies in the 1990s left an oligarchic class in charge of the economy.

Video, verified by The Washington Post, shows evidence of damage to a covered walkway about 250 feet from a building that houses a nuclear reactor at the Zaporizhzhia power plant.

The video first shows a long, thin object twisted on the ground. It appears similar to the vertical components that line the east side of the walkway. Puddles of unknown liquid are visible, as the camera moves further south. An empty tube that appears to be an expended munition casing lies on the ground near a slatted side of the walkway, and on the other side, the window facing the reactor is cracked. Nearby, the sky is visible through at least two holes in the roof. The floor immediately beneath them is discolored and covered in debris.

As Russia’s military buildup pressed against Ukraine’s border in late January and early February, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov celebrated the arrival of weapons from the West, illustrating his near-daily tweets with photographs of smiling men in uniform unloading heavy pallets from cargo aircraft.

“The 8th [American] bird has arrived in Kyiv!” Reznikov exulted on Feb. 5. “Our partners from #USA have sent more than 650 tons of defense ammunition to Ukraine! To be continued.”

The last such message came on Feb. 23, the day before Russia invaded.

A chilling video published on Friday shows the moment a team of Sky News journalists came under gunfire while driving through Ukraine — highlighting the increasing violence in an invasion that has killed hundreds of civilians.

Sky News foreign correspondent Stuart Ramsay and his team of four were attacked Monday after being ambushed by “a saboteur Russian reconnaissance squad,” according to Ramsay’s account of the incident.

The group was on its way to the town of Bucha, about 18 miles away from Kyiv. Near an intersection, the pop of a small explosion is heard. “It’s the tire, isn’t it?” producer Dominique Van Heerden is heard wondering out loud.

For a small tribe of veteran atomic experts who helped secure the Soviet Union’s nuclear energy and missiles as it started to fall apart in the late 1980s, the grainy images of the fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, were like something out of a frightening alternative reality.

That smoke. Those tracers. That fire. They, more than most others, knew the precise mechanics of how an accident could quickly turn into disaster.

Although the damage appears to have been contained — and Europe spared a nuclear disaster on the level of Fukushima — nuclear experts said they were still fearful as Russia’s military battles its way across Ukraine. The country has four active nuclear power plants and a failed one, Chernobyl, the radiation from which still requires constant upkeep.

Ivan Kolpakov, editor in chief of Meduza, one of Russia’s most popular independent media outlets, had been expecting the government to block the public’s access to his website every day since the war with Ukraine began.

On Friday morning it finally happened. But then Russia’s parliament went further, passing a law banning what it considers “fake” news about the military, including any rhetoric that calls the invasion of Ukraine an “invasion” — the preferred language is “special military operation” — with a potential 15-year prison sentence. Putin signed it into law hours later.

Several U.S. media organizations said Friday that they would limit activity in Russia, hours after President Vladimir Putin signed a measure into law criminalizing news coverage that accurately portrays the country’s bloody incursion into Ukraine as an “invasion.”

Bloomberg said it will “temporarily suspend our news gathering inside Russia,” according to a statement from editor in chief John Micklethwait. “The change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned NATO allies for ruling out a no-fly zone over the war-torn country to protect its skies from Russian attackers.

Zelensky, in a video message posted on social media, called NATO’s stance “weak,” saying it gave Russia the green light to continue its bombing campaign. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that NATO would support Ukrainians but that enforcing a no-fly zone would require sending NATO aircraft into Ukrainian airspace to shoot down Russian jets — something the alliance is unwilling to do.