Since mid-July, Russian forces have fired artillery from the city of Enerhodar, on the eastern side of the Dnipro River, into the Ukrainian-held city of Nikipol, on the western side, not far from the city of Kherson — the ultimate target of Ukraine's counteroffensive in the South. In Russian-held Enerhodar there sits a nuclear power plant with six reactors. Russia's strikes on Nikipol — randomly hitting Ukrainian homes, blowing out windows and igniting fires — cannot be answered by counterstrikes for fear of damaging a reactor or slamming into radioactive waste storage, possibly causing another Chernobyl.
Still operating the nuclear station are civilian Ukrainian engineers. And this is what they must endure, which is horrifying to all peoples of conscience, threatening to the power plant's safe operation, and profoundly defining of Putin's "soldiers":
The fatigue and stress of the Ukrainian control room employees at the reactor are a concern. Russian soldiers have subjected them to harsh interrogations, including torture with electrical shocks, suspecting them of sabotage or of informing the Ukrainian military about activities at the plant.... About a dozen have vanished after being abducted.
We are unsurprised by the Russians' barbaric treatment of Ukrainian civilians, nor are we surprised by their heinous, criminal behavior toward Ukrainian soldiers — real soldiers. We and the citizens of Ukraine learned early of Russia's many civilian atrocities, such as in Bucha, outside of Kyiv, and later, of Russia's murder of 53 Ukrainian prisoners of war. These are the faces of Russia's warring emulating of Nazi Germany's savagery.
Said Ukrainian battalion leader Col. Serhiy Shatalov of Russia's military exploitation of a nuclear power plant and its unspeakable abuse of Ukrainian civilians, "Don’t search for fairness in war, especially if you fight the Russians."