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10 INTERNATIONAL NEWS 10.3.2022 AS basic survival grows increasingly precarious, civilian evacuation efforts resumed Wednesday in Ukrainian cities battered by a Russian assault that shows no let-up after two weeks of relentless bombardment. At the same time, Ukrainian officials said the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant — the site of the world's worst nuclear accident, in 1986 — had lost access to the power grid, forcing it to rely on backup generators. Authorities called for a halt to fighting in the area, which is under Russian con- trol, to allow for repairs, lest the plant suffer a catastrophic interruption to the cooling of radioactive material. e International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been informed of the loss of electricity but saw "no critical im- pact on safety." Utility company Ukren- ergo said "military actions" meant there was currently "no possibility to restore" the plant's connection to the grid. e company said the nearby town of Slavu- tych was also out of power. Ukraine's government announced a daylong cease-fire, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., along several corridors around the country that have been designated for the safe exit of residents. e routes cover some of the most beleaguered ar- eas, including Mariupol in the south, Sumy in the northeast and parts of Kyiv, the capital. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Veresh- chuk said Moscow had agreed to the temporary truce in those places, but Ukrainian officials remain skeptical that Russian forces would respect the agree- ment. Previous cease-fire deals were effectively stillborn because of contin- ued Russian shelling along the so-called humanitarian corridors, Ukraine says, with only the one from Sumy to the city of Poltava seeing an appreciable num- bers of evacuees. "Hundreds of people were saved. e humanitarian corridor was delivered," Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelen- skyy said Wednesday. "But that's only 1% of what needs to be done." He blamed the breakdown of past cease-fire agreements on Russian "sav- ages" who kept up their attacks on de- fenseless civilians, and urged patience among his compatriots who are trying to reach safety. "Humanitarian corridors will still work," Zelenskyy said. "And only time separates you from freedom." e Ukrainian leader, whose frequent video addresses in his military-olive T-shirt have endeared him to his people for their mix of defiance and encourage- ment, also thanked President Joe Biden for his decision Tuesday to ban U.S. im- ports of Russian oil and gas. "I'm grateful personally to U.S. Pres- ident Biden for this decision, for his leadership, for this most powerful signal to the whole world," Zelenskyy said. "It is very simple: Every penny paid to Rus- sia turns into bullets and shells which are directed at other sovereign states." Hopes of moving more Ukrainians out of the way of those bullets and shells were revived with the announcement of six evacuation corridors to allow res- idents to leave the embattled cities of Mariupol, Enerhodar and Volnovakha in the south, Izyum in the east, Sumy in the northeast and several towns around Kyiv. e routes all lead to other parts of Ukraine, following anger over Moscow's former offer of safe routes that would funnel refugees to Russia itself and to its ally Belarus, which was a launch pad for invading forces from the north. e mayor of Irpin, a hard-hit Kyiv suburb, said priority would be given to women and children at various assem- bly points where buses would be wait- ing to ferry them to safety. "It is possible to leave in your own car as part of the convoy, so come to the in- dicated addresses!" the mayor said on his Facebook page. "Please spread this information as much as possible!!!" More than 2 million people have al- ready fled Ukraine, the United Nations says, making it Europe's fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. Most have gone west, to Poland and Hunga- ry, in such numbers that others are now heading south, to Romania, to avoid the bottleneck. Despite spirited resistance from both regular and irregular Ukrainian fight- ers, Russian troops continue to try to draw the net tighter around key cities. e Ukrainian military's general staff said Russian forces were placing equip- ment at farms and residences around Chernihiv, about 85 miles northeast of Kyiv. Residents of Chernihiv have been leaving the city to escape the heavy fighting there, with some reporting that it was now under de facto Russian con- trol. With the highway to Kyiv cut, those fleeing traversed back roads through small towns and villages. Here in Kozelets, about halfway be- tween Chernihiv and Kyiv, nervous vil- lagers trained a machine gun at every passing car on the highway to the cap- ital. "Yesterday we had more than 100 refu- gees pass by from Chernihiv," said Irina, an administrator in Kozelets who gave only her first name. At a small local hospital, Andre Khol- yavko, 32, was recovering from shrap- nel wounds to his right arm, which lay bandaged and scarred by his side. Khol- yavko left Chernihiv on the second day of the invasion, evacuating his moth- er, wife and 4-year-old son to Slabin, a small village outside the city. "e day we left there more than a hundred strikes," he said. But the Russian shells followed him: Late last week, as he collected wood with his son, the rockets started raining down. "I barely had time to cover my son," he recalled. In southern Ukraine, the military gen- eral staff said Russian soldiers disguised as civilians were trying to infiltrate Mykolaiv, a shipbuilding hub whose capture would be key to establishing a stranglehold along the Black and Azov seas. Kherson, about 40 miles southeast of Mykolaiv, is now under Russian con- trol — the only significant city so far to fall, at least officially, since the invasion began Feb. 24. e Russians had overrun Mykolaiv's airport, but it was retaken by Ukraini- an forces, the region's governor, Vitaliy Kim, said earlier this week. On Wednesday, Kim said food and wa- ter supplies remained stable, but some residents were leaving because of the attacks from the air. "at's why people are moving to the west — not because we have any hu- manitarian catastrophe," Kim told the BBC. "ey are afraid of bombs." He sounded an optimistic note on the ability of his city to hold out under the constant barrage. "We're going to defend and attack also. e enemy is very exhausted — he is without diesel and without ammo, no motivation," Kim said. "So I think the situation is not very bad for us." Power cut off to Chernobyl nuclear facility as evacuations resume from major cities in Ukraine Ukraine's energy operator Ukrenergo said the Chernobyl plant "was fully disconnected from the power grid"

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