Russian occupiers rule Ukraine’s nuclear plant through force, fear:

On the eighth day of Russia’s war in Ukraine, March 3, 2022, for the first time in history, an operating nuclear station was taken over militarily.

“We couldn’t believe it,” an engineer who worked at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant told Al Jazeera.

“We completely denied it, one can’t just seize a nuclear station, it’s the safest place on the planet.”

On that fateful Friday, sirens that sounded like wounded animals wailed endlessly, and shells flew in the night sky.

During Moscow’s efforts to seize the power station, which once produced a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity, two Russian tanks barraged the station’s walls with bloodcurdling thuds.

Ukrainian security staffers yelled into a bullhorn for hours to “stop bombing a nuclear site”.