Russia-Ukraine live updates: Civilian toll mounts in Ukraine as world leaders raise question of war crimes

Ukraine’s main security agency said Sunday that Russian forces launched rockets at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, which houses a nuclear facility.

The facility, known as the Neutron Source, has “37 nuclear fuel elements loaded into its active zone,” the Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement. By comparison, a typical reactor core holds between three to five times as many fuel assemblies, depending on the reactor type, according to the U.S. Energy Information Association.

Smaller reactors like the one housed in the Neutron Source are found at academic and research institutions in more than 70 countries across the globe, including at least three in Ukraine, according to data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which reports to the U.N. General Assembly.

The Washington Post on Sunday could not independently verify the agency’s reports. Concerns have grown across Europe about a potential nuclear catastrophe as several nuclear power plants have been seized by Russian forces in the past several days.

Ukrainian officials expressed alarm at the attack, saying in a Telegram post via Ukraine Now, a government-run channel, that it “could have lead to a major environmental catastrophe.”

On Friday, Ukrainian officials told the IAEA that a projectile had hit a training building in the vicinity of one of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s reactor units. That caused a localized fire that sparked alarm but triggered no release of radioactive material.

Ukrainian intelligence officials said local prosecutors working with the Security Council of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region have opened criminal proceedings over the rocket strike.

Netflix says it has suspended its service in Russia, joining the growing list of companies halting their business there amid the war in Ukraine.

“Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia,” the streaming service said in a statement Sunday, without elaborating.

As countries unite to punish Russia, companies have also moved to isolate the country. Financial institutions, tech companies, car manufacturers and more have cut off business because of the invasion.

Some of the latest firms to announce suspensions of their operations in Russia include Google, which halted its ad business, and American Express, which on Sunday denounced an “unjustified attack on the people of Ukraine.”

Entertainment companies have similarly pulled away from Russia. Warner Bros, for instance, said last week that it was “pausing” the release of “The Batman” there.

A list of global campaigns that are underway in support of Ukraine

More than 4,400 protesters were arrested Sunday at antiwar demonstrations across Russia, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights organization that Russian authorities have declared a foreign agent.

Crowds chanted “No to war!” while streaming through Moscow and St. Petersburg in a pair of videos posted to Twitter. In another, a demonstrator sang Ukraine’s anthem while being hauled away by police.

Authorities arrested at least 4,468 people across 56 cities in Russia, the organization said, as people risked arrest to denounce the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The group reported multiple instances of excessive force against protesters, including beatings and the use of stun guns. Among those detained were 13 journalists and 113 juveniles.

Footage shared on social media showed police taking demonstrators into custody, at times using force. Several officers wearing body armor surrounded a person who was flailing on the ground. One officer struck the person with a baton and kicked the person before another shooed away the camera filming the encounter.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, antiwar protests have occurred daily, OVD-Info reported. Russia has detained at least 10,318 protesters in 121 cities.

Spontaneous mass demonstrations are illegal in Russia, with protesters facing the possibility of fines and jail time.

TikTok will suspend both live-streaming and new content from Russia in response to the country’s new “fake” news law, TikTok said Sunday on the video app’s official communications account on Twitter.

Signed Friday by President Putin, Russia’s new law bans what the country calls “fake” news about its military, including language that describes Russia’s attack against Ukraine as an “invasion,” under threat of a 15-year prison sentence.

“In light of Russia’s new ‘fake news’ law, we have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” TikTok wrote on Twitter, noting that its in-app messaging would continue. “We will continue to evaluate the evolving circumstances in Russia to determine when we might fully resume our services with safety as our top priority.”

KYIV, Ukraine — Horace the Asian elephant is so terrified of explosions that he’s been put on sedatives. The zebras are being kept inside after they panicked at the sound of shelling and ran directly into a fence. And Maya the lemur is so overwhelmed that she abandoned her newborn baby this week — nearly killing him.

Zoos have often been collateral damage in war around the world. And war is now touching Kyiv’s zoo, next to a key military installation and possibly in the path of a Russian push into the capital.

Animals are increasingly exhibiting signs of stress. They cower from the air raid sirens and blasts that ring out throughout the day. Gunfire often can be heard at night.

Evidence is mounting that Russia is committing war crimes in its invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday, in some of the Biden administration’s sharpest comments to date on the issue.

“We’ve seen very credible reports of delivered attacks on civilians which would constitute a war crime. We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons,” Blinken said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“What we’re doing right now is documenting all this, putting it all together, looking at it and making sure that as people and the appropriate organizations and institutions investigate whether war crimes have been or are being committed that we can support whatever they’re doing,” he added.

The administration has until recently shied away from such rhetoric. But that now appears to be changing as a growing number of Western officials have been raising questions about possible war crimes in Russia’s bombardment of Ukraine. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the use of certain munitions on civilians already “fully qualifies” as a war crime.

A United Nations monitoring mission said Saturday that at least 351 civilians had been killed in Ukraine but acknowledged the number was probably higher.

The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said last week that he will begin investigating Russia for alleged crimes against humanity in Ukraine after more than three dozen countries backed such a move.

Ukrainian figures are also sounding the alarm. Former prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk recently said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “war criminal. He has to sit behind the bars in International Criminal Court.”

Russian forces are interfering with the operations of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, the largest in Europe, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday.

Management of the nuclear power plant is “under orders from the commander of the Russian forces that took control of the site last week,” according to an IAEA statement, citing Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Russia seized the plant early Friday after a projectile set part of the complex on fire and heightened fears across Europe of a catastrophic accident. Russian forces in February seized the decommissioned power plant at Chernobyl, the site of a major disaster in 1986.

The takeover of management in Zaporizhzhia now undermines key pillars of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency’s widely recognized nuclear safety and security practices, Grossi said, including the independence of the plant’s operations staff and unfettered communication.

Citing Ukrainian reports, the IAEA said Russian forces had turned off some Internet and mobile networking capabilities, severing the flow of information from the plant site: phone lines, emails and fax were no longer functional as of Sunday, with limited, poor-quality mobile phone communication.

“I’m extremely concerned about these developments that were reported to me today,” Grossi said, adding that the “deteriorating” communications situation amid armed conflict could jeopardize the country’s nuclear facilities.

“Reliable communications between the regulator and the operator are a critical part of overall nuclear safety and security,” he said.

Ukraine will receive another batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite systems this coming week to help maintain the country’s access to Internet and ability to communicate, President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Twitter on Saturday.

The latest shipment will be used to help “destroyed cities,” Zelensky wrote, noting that he had spoken to SpaceX’s chief executive and thanked him for the assistance: “I’m grateful to him for supporting Ukraine with words and deeds.”

Zelensky also mentioned speaking to Musk in a video message posted on his Telegram channel on Sunday. Starlink activated its satellite service in Ukraine late last month after the country’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, pleaded with Musk on Twitter to send aid.

Fedorov, Ukraine’s youngest deputy prime minister, confirmed the first shipment from Starlink by posting a photo on Twitter.

Early Saturday, Musk claimed that Starlink had been instructed “by some governments (not Ukraine) to block Russian news sources,” he wrote on Twitter. “We will not do so unless at gunpoint. Sorry to be a free speech absolutist.”

The attention-seeking CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla has previously offered his company’s products and services to assist in high-profile conflicts or emergencies, with mixed results.

Ukraine has yet to face an Internet blackout. But the publicity around Starlink could make the service a target for Russian surveillance. Musk acknowledged those concerns on Twitter last week.

“Important warning: Starlink is the only non-Russian communications system still working in some parts of Ukraine, so probability of being targeted is high. Please use with caution,” he wrote.