Lizzie Johnson and Kostiantyn Khudov | The Washington Post
More than a week after Russia said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost external power because of shelling, the situation at Europe’s largest nuclear plant is now critical, government officials and energy watchdogs say, with the facility running off emergency diesel generators. Ukraine says shelling by Russia caused the crisis, while Russia blames Ukraine. Meanwhile, a Greenpeace investigation published Wednesday examined satellite imagery and found no evidence of military strikes or shelling near the plant’s power lines.
Jon Gambrell | AP News
U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order vowing to use all measures including U.S. military action to defend the energy-rich nation of Qatar — though it remains unclear just what weight the pledge will carry… The true scope of the pledge by the U.S. remains in question. Typically, legally binding agreements, or treaties, need to receive the approval of the U.S. Senate.
Susannah George | The Washington Post
A new wave of harsh international sanctions are rattling Iranian politics and dragging down an already struggling economy as fears grow among U.S. allies in the region that another round of Israeli airstrikes on the country could be imminent. The Trump administration says the U.N. sanctions, which European countries agreed to impose as a longstanding deadline approached, are necessary to pressure Iran back into negotiations over its nuclear program. But U.S. allies are concerned that the approach is risky and it threatens to drag the region into a fresh cycle of conflict.
Reuters/Yahoo
Russia does not recognize the return of United Nations sanctions on Iran, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Wednesday when asked if Moscow would enforce the measures… "We'll be living in two parallel realities, because for some snapback happened, for us it didn't. That creates a problem. How we will get out of it - let's see," Nebenzia said.
Reuters/Yahoo
Russia is still waiting for U.S. President Donald Trump to respond to President Vladimir Putin's offer to voluntarily maintain the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons once a key arms control treaty expires, Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Wednesday. Putin last month offered to voluntarily maintain limits capping the size of the world's two biggest nuclear arsenals set out in the 2010 New START accord, which expires in February, if the U.S. does the same.
Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight-Boyle | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Pakistan continues to slowly modernize its nuclear arsenal with improved and new delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry… This issue’s column reviews the status of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and finds that the country currently has a stockpile of approximately 170 warheads, a number that could potentially grow to around 200 by the late 2020s at the current growth rate.