March 4, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The southeastern city of Mariupol is still under Ukrainian control but subject to "intense Russian strikes," the UK Ministry of Defense said Friday in its latest intelligence update on Ukraine.

Some context: Mariupol authorities warned Thursday of a "critical" situation for residents amid heavy shelling. It's not clear how many of the strategically important port city's roughly 400,000 population have been able to evacuate or how many have been killed or injured.

Residents of the Ukrainian cultural capital Lviv are assisting efforts to safeguard historic monuments, according to local heritage officials, with several stone statues seen being wrapped in protective sheets.

Photos taken at the city's central Market Square on Thursday show men on stepladders enveloping sculptures of the Roman god Neptune and Greek goddess Amphitrite in plastic. Along with nearby statues of the classical deities Adonis and Diana, the limestone figures were built over 200 years ago, with accompanying fountains located at each of the square's corners.

Outside the neighboring Latin Cathedral, built in the 14th century, a smaller statue was seen covered in what appeared to be foam and secured with tape.

Although CNN was unable to verify the individual workers' identities, heritage NGO the Lviv Foundation for the Preservation of Architectural and Historical Monuments said art conservators and "concerned" locals had both been involved in protection efforts.

On Thursday, the organization shared a series of images to Facebook showing a man on a cherry picker boarding up a stained-glass panel at the city's 17th century Dormition Church. Another post showed monuments at St. Anthony's Church being encased in protective wooden frames.

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'Concerned' Ukrainian locals help protect Lviv's historic statues

Oscar Holland, CNN

Russian forces have “occupied” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) in southern Ukraine after a fire broke out at the facility early on Friday, according to Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate.

The “administrative building and the checkpoint at the station are under occupiers’ control,” Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator, said in a statement via Telegram on Friday.

The power plant’s six reactors remain intact, though reactor unit 1’s compartment auxiliary buildings have been damaged, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate said.

“The systems and components important to the safety of the NPP are operational,” the statement said. With Unit 1 out of order, four out of the six units are being cooled down while one unit is providing power.

“At present, no changes in the radiation situation have been registered,” the statement added.

Some context: After heavy shelling from Russian forces early Friday, a fire broke out at the nuclear plant, prompting alarm from experts and Ukrainian officials.

Firefighters were initially unable to access the site. After a while, fighting stopped, firefighters were allowed to enter and the fire was put out. No casualties were reported from the fire.

US and Ukrainian authorities said radiation levels looked normal.

The Moscow stock exchange will not open for trading Friday, the Russian Central Bank said in a statement.

Soon after, the stock exchange said in a statement it would remain closed through March 8. The closure includes "trading and settlements on all markets of the Moscow Exchange," the statement said.

The stock exchange has not opened all week, after Western sanctions were imposed on Russia over the past weekend.

Some context: US President Joe Biden announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs on Thursday. The United Kingdom also sanctioned two leading oligarchs with a combined worth of $19 billion.

"We won’t stop here. Our aim is to cripple the Russian economy and starve Putin’s war machine," UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement.

In Odessa, a strategically important port city on Ukraine's Black Sea coast, civilians — computer programmers, IT workers, everyday workers — have taken up weapons to defend against Russia's invasion.

Zhena was a chief marketing officer for an IT company before he joined Ukraine's armed forces. He told CNN two of his friends had already been killed in the war, both volunteers who had been fighting in the besieged city of Kherson.

"They have no military grounding at all. Both of them are programmers," he said.

One 19-year-old volunteer, who formerly worked as a nanny, says she faced the Russian threat to her home once before. When she was 11, she fled Crimea, which was occupied by Russia in 2014 and annexed after a referendum widely seen as a sham.

On the other side of the southern city, Odessa's mothers knit camouflage netting as they pray for their children's safety on the front lines.

"We know the danger. We know it will come. But we didn't know when will it come," said one mother, Nellia Kononova.

She had asked her children to stay with her for their safety — but they were determined to fight and defend Ukraine "because everybody loves our motherland," she said, before breaking into tears. "I pray every day, I pray every night, for them to stay alive."

As the Russian assault on Kyiv steps up, some of the city's most vulnerable residents can't leave.

For the Ukrainian capital's largest children's hospital, shutting down is not an option, even with the sound of heavy fighting and shelling outside. Children who are too sick to be transferred have been moved to the basement, in case bombardment starts again. There are about 10 patients being treated in the underground hallway, where exhausted staff hover nervously.

One of the patients is 3-month old Milena, who has a brain tumor. Her mother, Sonia, told CNN she had been sleeping on the floor next to Milena for the past seven nights as the bombing gets closer.

She said she has become so stressed that she can't lactate, and is now using formula to feed her daughter.

Resources are stretched tight as hospitals deal with trauma injuries — so some parents have stepped in to help care for other children in the basement. Non-essential procedures are now on hold. When CNN visited the hospital, one 11-year-old boy needs to have his sutures removed — but the risk of infection is too high.

With no clear end in sight, for many families here the only glimmer of hope is evacuation. On Thursday, Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in Belarus for another round of talks, where they agreed to provide humanitarian corridors for civilians and a possible temporary ceasefire in areas where evacuation is happening.

Ukraine's Minister of Energy German Galushchenko had an "urgent" telephone conversation with his US counterpart Jennifer Granholm about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant early Friday, according to a statement from Ukraine's Ministry of Energy.

The fire at the facility broke out in the early hours of Friday morning, and has since been extinguished with no casualties, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.

"The enemy is not concerned about nuclear and radiation security," Galushchenko said, according to the statement. He added that Russia was "indifferent to the human lives of Ukrainians, Europeans and their own citizens."

"Therefore, we demand not only a professional assessment of what is happening, but also real intervention, taking the toughest measures, including by NATO and the countries that possess nuclear weapons," he added.

Ukrainian authorities said a fire that broke out at a nuclear power plant early Friday amid heavy shelling by Russian forces has now been extinguished.

Here's what happened:

When did the fire start? Ukrainian authorities said about 2:30 a.m. local time Friday that a fire had broken out at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, located in Enerhodar, southeastern Ukraine. The plant is the largest of its kind in Ukraine and contains six of the country's 15 nuclear energy reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

When did the blaze stop? The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said the fire at the plant's training building was extinguished at 6.20 a.m. No deaths or injuries were reported, according to the statement.

Are they still fighting? Fighting has since stopped in the area, a spokesperson for the power plant told CNN. In a Facebook post early Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of intentionally firing at the nuclear plant — and urged European leaders to "wake up now" and stop Russian forces "before this becomes a nuclear disaster." 

How serious is the situation? It's hard to say since there is still a lot we don't know. But the plant has not sustained any "critical" damage, the spokesperson for the facility said. The fire has not affected any "essential" equipment, and staff are taking action to mitigate any damage, the IAEA said, citing Ukrainian authorities.

Are we seeing any radiation spikes? No — nuclear regulators and government bodies in the United States and Ukraine say radiation levels appear normal.

What are the risks? The worst-case scenario would be if a fire or attack reached the reactors, disrupted their cooling system and caused a meltdown, which would release large amounts of radioactivity. However, Graham Allison, professor at the Belfer Center, Harvard University, told CNN early Friday that "not all fires in a power plant, have catastrophic consequences."

A fire that broke out at Ukraine's largest nuclear power plant was extinguished early Friday following heavy shelling by Russian forces, as key cities come under attack from invading troops.

Here's what you need to know: