Send us Patriots: Ukraine’s battered energy plants seek air defenses against Russian attacks

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Workers stand among debris in a damaged DTEK thermal power plant after a Russian attack in Ukraine, on May 2, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 03 May 2024
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Send us Patriots: Ukraine’s battered energy plants seek air defenses against Russian attacks

  • Ukraine's foreign minister has said half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries

KYIV, Ukraine: At a Ukrainian power plant repeatedly hit by Russian aerial attacks, equipment department chief Oleh has a one-word answer when asked what Ukraine’s battered energy industry needs most: “Patriot.”

Ukrainian energy workers are struggling to repair the damage from intensifying airstrikes aimed at pulverizing Ukraine’s energy grid, hobbling the economy and sapping the public’s morale. Staff worry they will lose the race to prepare for winter unless allies come up with air-defense systems like the US-made Patriots to stop Russian attacks inflicting more destruction on already damaged plants.
“Rockets hit fast. Fixing takes long,” Oleh said in limited but forceful English.
The US has sent Ukraine some Patriot missile systems, and said last week it would give more after entreaties from President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Associated Press on Thursday visited a plant owned by DTEK, the country’s biggest private energy supplier, days after a cruise-missile attack left parts of it a mess of smashed glass, shattered bricks and twisted metal. The coal-fired plant is one of four DTEK power stations struck on the same day last week.
The AP was given access on the condition that the location of the facility, technical details of the damage and workers’ full names are not published due to security concerns.
During the visit, State Emergency Service workers in hard hats and harnesses clambered atop the twisted roof of a vast building, assessing the damage and occasionally dislodging chunks of debris with a thunderous clang.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Foreign Policy magazine that half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks.
DTEK says it has lost 80 percent of its electricity-generating capacity in almost 180 aerial attacks since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It estimates that repairing all the damaged plants would take between six months and two years — even if there are no more strikes.
Shift supervisor Ruslan was on duty in the operations room when the air alarm sounded. He sent his crew to a basement shelter but remained at his post when the blast struck only meters (yards) away.
He rushed out to darkness, dust and fire. He said he wasn’t scared because “I knew what I needed to do” – make sure his team was OK and then try to help put out the flames.
Russia pummeled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to devastating effect during the “blackout winter” of 2022-23. In March it launched a new wave of attacks, one of which completely destroyed the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv, one of the country’s biggest.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Oleh said the Russians are “learning all the time” and adapting their tactics. Initially they targeted transformers that distribute power; now they aim for the power-generating equipment itself, with increasing accuracy. The Russians also are sending growing numbers of missiles and exploding drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, and striking the same targets repeatedly.
DTEK executive director Dmytro Sakharuk said in March that out of 10 units the company had repaired after earlier strikes, two-thirds had been hit again.
More Russian missiles have been getting through in recent months as Ukraine awaited new supplies from allies, including a $61 billion package from the US that was held up for months by wrangling in Congress. It was finally approved in April, but it could be weeks or months before all the new weapons and ammunition arrives.
Ukraine’s energy firms have all but exhausted their finances, equipment and spare parts fixing the damage Russia has already wrought. The country’s power plants urgently need specialist equipment that Ukraine can no longer make at sufficient speed and scale.
Some 51 DTEK employees have been wounded in attacks since 2022, and three have been killed. Staff say they keep working despite the danger because they know how crucial their work is.
Machine operator Dmytro, who was on shift during the recent attack and took shelter in the basement, said that when he emerged, “my soul was bleeding when I saw the scale of the destruction.”
He thought of the many people who had poured heart and soul into building the mammoth power plant.
“This was destroyed in a few seconds, in an instant,” he said.
Dmytro, who worked at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant before it was seized by Russia, said he would continue to show up for work every day, “as long as I’m able.”
“It’s our duty toward the country,” he said


Trump official says Harvard banned from federal grants

Updated 06 May 2025
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Trump official says Harvard banned from federal grants

  • Harvard has drawn Trump’s ire by refusing to comply with his demands that it accept government oversight of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s education secretary said Monday that Harvard will no longer receive federal grants, escalating an ongoing battle with the prestigious university as it challenges the funding cuts in court.
The Trump administration has for weeks locked horns with Harvard and other higher education institutions over claims they tolerate anti-Semitism on their campuses — threatening their budgets, tax-exempt status and enrollment of foreign students.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in a letter sent to Harvard’s president and posted online, said that the university “should no longer seek GRANTS from the federal government, since none will be provided.”
She alleged that Harvard has “failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor.”
Harvard — routinely ranked among the world’s top universities — has drawn Trump’s ire by refusing to comply with his demands that it accept government oversight of its admissions, hiring practices and political slant.
That prompted the Trump administration to in mid-April freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding, with a total of $9 billion under review.
McMahon, a former wrestling executive, said that her letter “marks the end of new grants for the University.”
Harvard is the wealthiest US university with an endowment valued at $53.2 billion in 2024.
The latest move comes as Trump and his White House crack down on US universities on several fronts, justified as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and a need to reverse diversity programs aimed at addressing historical oppression of minorities.
The administration has threatened funding freezes and other punishments, prompting concerns over declining academic freedom.
It has also moved to revoke visas and deport foreign students involved in the protests, accusing them of supporting Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose October 7, 2023 attack on Israel provoked the war.
Trump’s claims about diversity tap into long-standing conservative complaints that US university campuses are too liberal, shutting out right-wing voices and favoring minorities.


Ukraine’s drone attack on Moscow forces airports’ closure, officials say

Updated 06 May 2025
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Ukraine’s drone attack on Moscow forces airports’ closure, officials say

Russian air defense units destroyed a swarm of Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow for the second night in a row, prompting the closure of the capital’s airports, Russian officials said early on Tuesday.
Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 19 Ukrainian drones were destroyed on their approach to Moscow “from different directions.”
“At the sites where fragments fell, there was no destruction or casualties,” Sobyanin wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Specialists from the emergency services are working at the sites where the incidents occurred.”
Some of the debris had landed on one of the key highways leading into the city, he said.
Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram it had halted flights at all four airports that serve Moscow. Airports in a number of regional cities were also closed.
On Tuesday, Russia’s air defense units destroyed four Ukrainian drones on their approach to Moscow, with no damage or injuries reported.
The war began more than three years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine, a move Moscow described as a special military operation. Since then, Kyiv has launched several drone attacks on Moscow. Its biggest attack in March killed three people.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv about the latest drone attack. Ukraine says its drone attacks are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s overall war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued assault on Ukrainian territory, including residential areas and energy infrastructure.


OpenAI abandons plan to become for-profit company

Updated 06 May 2025
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OpenAI abandons plan to become for-profit company

SAN FRANCISCO: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Monday that the company behind ChatGPT will continue to be run as a nonprofit, abandoning a contested plan to convert into a for-profit organization.
The structural issue had become a significant point of contention for the artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer, with major investors pushing for the change to better secure their returns.
AI safety advocates had expressed concerns about pursuing substantial profits from such powerful technology without the oversight of a nonprofit board of directors acting in society’s interest rather than for shareholder profits.
“OpenAI is not a normal company and never will be,” Altman wrote in an email to staff posted on the company’s website.
“We made the decision for the nonprofit to stay in control after hearing from civic leaders and having discussions with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware,” he added.
OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 and later created a “capped” for-profit entity allowing limited profit-making to attract investors, with cloud computing giant Microsoft becoming the largest early backer.
This arrangement nearly collapsed in 2023 when the board unexpectedly fired Altman. Staff revolted, leading to Altman’s reinstatement while those responsible for his dismissal departed.
Alarmed by the instability, investors demanded OpenAI transition to a more traditional for-profit structure within two years.
Under its initial reform plan revealed last year, OpenAI would have become an outright for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), reassuring investors considering the tens of billions of dollars necessary to fulfill the company’s ambitions.
Any status change, however, requires approval from state governments in California and Delaware, where the company is headquartered and registered, respectively.
The plan faced strong criticism from AI safety activists and co-founder Elon Musk, who sued the company he left in 2018, claiming the proposal violated its founding philosophy.
In the revised plan, OpenAI’s money-making arm will now be fully open to generate profits but, crucially, will remain under the nonprofit board’s supervision.
“We believe this sets us up to continue to make rapid, safe progress and to put great AI in the hands of everyone,” Altman said.
OpenAI’s major investors will likely have a say in this proposal, with Japanese investment giant SoftBank having made the change to being a for-profit a condition for their massive $30 billion investment announced on March 31.
In an official document, SoftBank stated its total investment could be reduced to $20 billion if OpenAI does not restructure into a for-profit entity by year-end.
The substantial cash injections are needed to cover OpenAI’s colossal computing requirements to build increasingly energy-intensive and complex AI models.
The company’s original vision did not contemplate “the needs for hundreds of billions of dollars of compute to train models and serve users,” Altman said.
SoftBank’s contribution in March represented the majority of the $40 billion raised in a funding round that valued the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion, marking the largest capital-raising event ever for a startup.
The company, led by Altman, has become one of Silicon Valley’s most successful startups, propelled to prominence in 2022 with the release of ChatGPT, its generative AI chatbot.


Ukrainian forces attack substation in Kursk region, regional governor says

Updated 06 May 2025
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Ukrainian forces attack substation in Kursk region, regional governor says

  • Two teenagers were injured in the attack
  • Russian war bloggers reported a new Ukrainian land-based incursion into the area backed by armored vehicles

MOSCOW: Ukrainian forces attacked a power substation in Russia’s western Kursk region, the regional governor said early on Tuesday after Russian war bloggers reported a new Ukrainian land-based incursion into the area backed by armored vehicles.
Officials on both sides of the border reported deaths from military activity and ordered evacuations of several settlements.
Kursk Governor Alexander Khinshtein’s report, posted on the Telegram messaging app, said Ukrainian forces had struck the substation in the town of Rylsk, about 50 km (30 miles) from the border, injuring two teenagers. Two transformers were damaged and power cut to the area.
“Dear residents, the enemy, in its agony, is continuing to launch strikes against our territory,” Khinshtein wrote.
Ukraine made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024, hoping to shift the momentum in Russia’s full-scale invasion and draw Russian forces away from other sectors of the front in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s top general said last month that Ukrainian troops had been ejected from Kursk, ending the biggest incursion into Russian territory since World War Two, and that Russia was carving out a buffer zone in the Ukrainian region of Sumy.
Kyiv has not acknowledged that its troops were forced out. President Volodymyr Zelensky says Kyiv’s forces continue to operate in Kursk and in the adjacent Russian region of Belgorod.
Russian bloggers had earlier reported that Ukrainian forces firing missiles had smashed through the border, crossing minefields with special vehicles.
“The enemy blew up bridges with rockets at night and launched an attack with armored groups in the morning,” Russian war blogger “RVvoenkor” said on Telegram.
“The mine clearance vehicles began to make passages in the minefields, followed by armored vehicles with troops. There is a heavy battle going on at the border.”
Popular Russian military blog Rybar said Ukrainian units were trying to advance near two settlements in Kursk region over the border — Tyotkino and Glushkovo.
The head of Glushkovo district, Pavel Zolotaryov, wrote on Telegram that residents of several localities were being evacuated to safer areas.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with Moscow calling it a special military operation.

DRONE ATTACKS INCREASE

“Over the past 24 hours, there has been an increase in attacks by enemy drones,” Zolotaryov wrote. “There have been instances of people being killed or wounded, of houses and sites of civil infrastructure being destroyed.”
The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk was reported by other Russian bloggers, including “the archangel of special forces” and Russian state television war correspondent Alexander Sladkov.
Ukrainian officials did not comment on any advances.
But Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office said Russian forces had subjected two settlements in the border Sumy region — Bilopillya and Vorozhba — to artillery fire and guided bomb attacks, killing three residents and injuring four.
Earlier, local authorities in Sumy region had urged residents to evacuate their homes in the area, about 10 km (six miles) across the border from Tyotkino in Kursk region.
The Ukrainian military said on Monday that its forces struck a Russian drone command unit near Tyotkino on Sunday. 


Trump’s Alcatraz prison restoration plan gets cold reception from tourists

Updated 06 May 2025
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Trump’s Alcatraz prison restoration plan gets cold reception from tourists

  • Site known as ‘The Rock’ draws 1.2 million tourists a year
  • US closed prison in 1963 due costs of operating on an island

SAN FRANCISCO: US President Donald Trump’s plan to turn Alcatraz back into a federal prison was summarily rejected on Monday by some visitors to the tourist site in San Francisco Bay.
Trump revealed a plan over the weekend to rebuild and expand the notorious island prison, a historic landmark known as “The Rock” and operated by the US government’s National Park Service. It’s “just an idea I’ve had,” he said.
“We need law and order in this country. So we’re going to look at it,” he added on Monday.
Once nearly impossible to leave, the island can be difficult to get to because of competition for tickets. Alcatraz prison held fewer than 300 inmates at a time before it was closed in 1963 and draws roughly 1.2 million tourists a year.
US Bureau of Prisons Director William Marshall said on Monday he would vigorously pursue the president’s agenda and was looking at next steps.
“It’s a waste of money,” said visitor Ben Stripe from Santa Ana, California. “After walking around and seeing this place and the condition it’s in, it is just way too expensive to refurbish.” he said.
“It’s not feasible to have somebody still live here,” agreed Cindy Lacomb from Phoenix, Arizona, who imagined replacing all the metal in the cells and rebuilding the crumbling concrete.
The sprawling site is in disrepair, with peeling paint and rusting locks and cell bars. Signs reading “Area closed for your safety” block off access to many parts of the grounds. Chemical toilets sit next to permanent restrooms closed off for repair.
The former home of Al Capone and other notable inmates was known for tough treatment, including pitch-black isolation cells. It was billed as America’s most secure prison given the island location, frigid waters and strong currents.
It was closed because of high operating costs. The island also was claimed by Native American activists in 1969, an act of civil disobedience acknowledged by the National Park Service.
Mike Forbes, visiting from Pittsburgh, said it should remain a part of history. “I’m a former prison guard and rehabilitation is real. Punishment is best left in the past,” Forbes said.
No successful escapes were ever officially recorded from Alcatraz, though five prisoners were listed as “missing and presumed drowned.”
Today a “Supermax” facility located in Florence, Colorado, about 115 miles (185 km) south of Denver, is nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” No one has ever escaped from that 375-inmate facility since it opened in 1994.
Congress in fiscal year 2024 cut the Bureau of Prisons infrastructure budget by 38 percent and prison officials have previously reported a $3 billion maintenance backlog. The Bureau of Prisons last year said it would close aging prisons, as it struggled with funding cuts.