In three weeks of fighting, Russia has lost at least 270 tanks, according to the open source weapons tracking site Oryx -- almost 10% of its estimated active force. From a report: Ukraine's defense is proving so effective, in fact, that many analysts are attributing the failure of Russia's offense not only to its commanders, or to its tanks, but to the very idea of the tank itself, as a front-line weapon platform that can gain ground. The emerging evidence of tanks' tactical weakness is "striking," as one expert put it, and it has opened up a debate about whether tanks might be on their way to joining chariots and mounted cavalry in the boneyard of military history.

Cheap, low-flying drones are striking tanks from above. Soldiers are using charred suburban landscape to ambush tanks with a new generation of fire-and-forget weapons that makes tank-killing unsettlingly simple, even in the hands of a volunteer. "An infantry that is determined to fight is now super-empowered by having things like a huge number of point-and-shoot disposable anti-tank rockets," Edward Luttwak, a military strategist who consults for governments around the world, told Insider. Tanks have ruled land warfare for more than 80 years. It's their job to punch through enemy positions so infantry can flood in and hold the newly gained ground. Tanks have long been susceptible to soldier-carried weapons like bazookas and recoilless rifles, as well as improvised explosives such as the anti-tank "sticky bombs" seen in the film "Saving Private Ryan."

But looking at the ineffectiveness of Russian tank attacks in Ukraine, one can see how technology -- particularly advances in high explosives and guided missiles -- is further tipping the odds to favor anti-tank defenders, to the point where tanks could arguably be rendered obsolete. One defense analyst who spoke with Insider compared the role of tanks to that of the Swiss pikemen, Renaissance-era fighters armed with pikes and halberd who once were an army's frontlines. This vanguard role, held then by foot soldiers and now by tanks, will likely shift to drones, robotic vehicles, and long-range strike systems. "Tanks are going to move, over time, into more of a mopping-up role," said Paul Scharre, a former US Army Ranger and a director of studies at the Center for a New American Security.

A new report has found that Facebook failed to detect blatant hate speech and calls to violence against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority years after such behavior was found to have played a determining role in the genocide against them. From a report: The report shared exclusively with The Associated Press showed the rights group Global Witness submitted eight paid ads for approval to Facebook, each including different versions of hate speech against Rohingya. All eight ads were approved by Facebook to be published. The group pulled the ads before they were posted or paid for, but the results confirmed that despite its promises to do better, Facebook's leaky controls still fail to detect hate speech and calls for violence on its platform. The army conducted what it called a clearance campaign in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh and security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes.

On Feb. 1 of last year, Myanmar's military forcibly took control of the country, jailing democratically elected government officials. Rohingya refugees have condemned the military takeover and said it makes them more afraid to return to Myanmar. Experts say such ads have continued to appear and that despite its promises to do better and assurances that it has taken its role in the genocide seriously, Facebook still fails even the simplest of tests -- ensuring that paid ads that run on its site do not contain hate speech calling for the killing of Rohingya Muslims.

OneWeb, the satellite company part-owned by the British state, is turning to Elon Musk's SpaceX for help after it was barred from using Russian rockets to launch its latest orbiters. From a report: Under the arrangement, the communications firm will partner with SpaceX for its first launches later this year, adding to the 428 micro-satellites it already has in low-earth orbit. OneWeb and SpaceX did not disclose the terms of the launch arrangement. The company quotes a standard price of $67m to launch a Falcon 9 rocket â" up from $62m earlier this year, "to account for excessive levels of inflation." The 12% increase is the first in nearly six years. OneWeb was forced to abandon its plans to launch on one of Russia's Soyuz rockets earlier this month, after Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency, demanded the satellites not be used for military purposes and the British government halt its financial backing.

The Washington Post looks at what happened after Starlink activated its satellite-based internet service to help Ukraine: Ukraine has already received thousands of antennas from Musk's companies and European allies, which has proved "very effective," Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with The Washington Post Friday. "The quality of the link is excellent," Fedorov said through a translator, using a Starlink connection from an undisclosed location. "We are using thousands, in the area of thousands, of terminals with new shipments arriving every other day...." A person familiar with Starlink's effort in Ukraine, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said there are more than 5,000 terminals in the country....

Internet flows deteriorated on the first day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 and have not fully recovered, according to data-monitoring services. But since that initial dip, connectivity has remained fairly stable, with mainly temporary, isolated outages even during heavy Russian shelling. "Every day there are outages, but generally service comes back," said Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis for Kentik, which monitors global data flows.

Even before Fedorov tweeted at Musk for help, SpaceX was working on a way to get Starlink to Ukraine. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said in a talk at California Institute of Technology this month that the company had been working for several weeks to get regulatory approval to allow the satellites to communicate in Ukraine.
In addition, the Washington Post reports, this week on Twitter Elon Musk also "challenged Putin to a fight and followed up by pledging he would use just one hand if Putin was scared. And he told Putin he could bring a bear." Reached for comment by the Post's reporters, Elon Musk responded by telling The Post to give his regards "to your puppet master Besos," following it with two emojis.

But the Post's article also argues Starlink's technology "could have widespread implications for the future of war. Internet has become an essential tool for communication, staying informed and even powering weapons." And The Telegraph reports that Starlink "is helping Ukrainian forces win the drone war as they use the technology in their effort to track and kill invading Russians." In the vanguard of Ukraine's astonishingly effective military effort against Vladimir Putin's forces is a unit called Aerorozvidka (Aerial Reconnaissance) which is using surveillance and attack drones to target Russian tanks and positions. Amid internet and power outages, which are expected to get worse, Ukraine is turning to the newly available Starlink system for some of its communications. Drone teams in the field, sometimes in badly connected rural areas, are able to use Starlink to connect them to targeters and intelligence on their battlefield database. They can direct the drones to drop anti-tank munitions, sometimes flying up silently to Russian forces at night as they sleep in their vehicles...

Should Ukraine's internet largely collapse, the "drone warriors" of Aerorozvidka would still be able to communicate with their bases by sending signals from mobile Starlink terminals, and using ground stations in neighbouring countries including Poland.... As Ukraine's internet is inevitably degraded, Starlink will be an alternative. General James Dickinson, commander of US Space Command, told the Senate armed services committee: "What we're seeing with Elon Musk and the Starlink capabilities is really showing us what a megaconstellation, or a proliferated architecture, can provide in terms of redundancy and capability."
It's not all Starlink. The Telegraph points out that "The Ukrainian system benefitted from equipment given by Western countries, including radio communications which superceded Soviet-era technology, and the US has also poured in millions of dollars to protect against Russian hacking, jamming of signals and attempts to 'spoof' GPS technology."

And meanwhile, weakness in Russia's own communications infrastructure may have played a role in the killing of five senior Russian generals in the last three weeks, according to a recent CNN interview with retired U.S. army general and former CIA director David Petraeus: "The bottom line is that [Russia's] command-and-control has broken down. Their communications have been jammed by the Ukranians.

Their secure comms didn't work. They had to go single-channel. That's jammable, and that's exactly what the Ukranians have been doing to that. They used cellphones. The Ukranians blocked the prefix for Russia, so that didn't work. Then they took down 3G. [The Russians] are literally stealing cellphones from Ukranian civilians to communicate among each other.

So what happens? The column gets stopped. An impatient general is sitting back there in his armored or whatever vehicle. He goes forward to find out what's going on... And the Ukranians have very, very good snipers, and they've just been picking them off left and right.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for submitting the story.

"Belarusian railway workers have reportedly cut off all rail connections between their country and Ukraine," reports Germany's public broadcaster DW: Ukrainian railway chief Olexander Kamyshin thanked Belarusian railway workers for this claimed act of sabotage on Saturday. "As of today, I can say there is no rail traffic between Belarus and Ukraine," Kamyshin was quoted as saying by Ukraine's Unian news agency. Kamyshin said that he would not give further details.

Franak Viacorka, advisor to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, tweeted about the incident and said that it had been confirmed by Belarusian railway workers, while declining to provide details.

Although Russia has moved many of its troops and military equipment into Ukraine through Belarus, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has not committed Belarusian troops to the offensive.
A Ukrainian online newspaper claims that "There is no longer a railway connection between Ukraine and Belarus, so the Russian occupiers will not be able to deliver Russian equipment by rail from Belarus," citing the longer televisied remarks of Ukrainian railway chief Olexander Kamyshin: "I believe that these people will be able to prevent Belarusian Railways from transporting military convoys to Ukraine," Kamyshin added.

"Currently, the railways are out of order", Kamyshin confirmed, "so Russian equipment from Belarus will not be able to be delivered."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine turns up in Mike Melanson's column "This Week in Programming": While the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) definition of open source software is quite clear on the matter — there must be "no discrimination against persons or groups" and "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" — the issue of who should be allowed to use open source software, according to ethical considerations, has long been debated.

Over the last month, this topic has again become a focus of debate as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to developers calling for blanket bans by companies like GitHub and GitLab; and to some developers even taking action. Earlier this month, we wrote about how open source gateway Scarf began limiting access to open source packages for the Russian government and military entities, via its gateway.

As we noted at the time, there was a primary distinction made when Scarf took this action: distribution of open source software is separate from the licensing of it. Those points of the OSI definition pertain to the licensing, not to some entity actively providing the software to others.

Since then, discussions around these ideas have continued, and this week an essay by Bradley M. Kuhn, a policy fellow and hacker-in-residence at the Software Freedom Conservancy, argues that copyleft won't solve all problems, just some of them.

The essay specifically takes to task the idea that open source software can effectively affect change by way of licensing limitations. He spent nearly 3,000 words on the topic, before pointedly addressing the issue of Russia — with a similar conclusion to the one reached by Scarf earlier this month. Kuhn argues that "FOSS licenses are not an effective tool to advance social justice causes other than software freedom" and that, instead, developers have a moral obligation to take stances by way of other methods.

"For example, FOSS developers should refuse to work specifically on bug reports from companies who don't pay their workers a living wage," Kuhn offers in an example.

Regarding Russia specifically, Kuhn again points to distribution as an avenue of protest, while still remaining in line with the principles of free and open source software.

"Every FOSS license in existence permits capricious distribution; software freedom guarantees the right to refuse to distribute new versions of the software. (i.e., Copyleft does not require that you publish all your software on the Internet for everyone, or that you give equal access to everyone — rather, it merely requires that those whom you chose to give legitimate access to the software also receive CCS). FOSS projects should thus avoid providing Putin easy access to updates to their FOSS," writes Kuhn.

Russia's Internet giant Yandex has told investors it's exploring "strategic options" for its media products -- including a potential sale of its news aggregator, Yandex News, and a user-generated-content-recommendation and blogging "infotainment" platform, called Zen. From a report: The disclosure confirms our reporting earlier this week -- when sources told us Yandex is in discussions to sell Yandex News and Zen. Our sources suggested the move is linked to the risks posed by tighter regulations on freedom of expression by the Russian state since it went to war in Ukraine, including a new law which threatens lengthy jail sentences for anyone spreading "false" information about the Russian military (such as by referring to the "war" in Ukraine, rather than using the Kremlin's preferred phrasing of "special military operation").

The U.S. government is warning of "possible threats" to satellite communication networks amid fears that recent attacks on satellite networks in Europe, sparked by the war in Ukraine, could soon spread to the United States. From a reportL: A joint CISA-FBI advisory published this week urges satellite communication (SATCOM) network providers and critical infrastructure organizations that rely on satellite networks to bolster their cybersecurity defenses due to an increased likelihood of cyberattack, warning that a successful intrusion could create risk in their customer environments.

While the advisory did not name specific sectors under threat, the use of satellite communications is widespread across the United States. It's estimated that about eight million Americans rely on SATCOM networks for internet access. Ruben Santamarta, a cybersecurity expert who specializes in analyzing satellite communications systems, told TechCrunch that networks are used in a wide number of industries, including aviation, government, the media and the military, as well as gas facilities and electricity service stations that are located in remote places.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft won a contract worth up to $22 billion to build HoloLens-like goggles for the US military. The contract has had delays and quality problems amid strategic confusion in its mixed reality unit. Microsoft is expecting a negative reception due to ongoing problems with the device's reliability and its performance in low light environments, adding uncertainty ahead of the planned operational tests in May, according to the email. "We (Microsoft) are going into the event expecting negative feedback from the customer," a Microsoft employee wrote on Thursday in a memo to members of the company's military contract team, including AI and mixed reality general manager David Marra. "We expect soldier sentiment to continue to be negative as reliability improvements have been minimal from previous events."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's attempt to appeal extradition was denied by the UK's Supreme Court on Monday. Assange was initially granted the right to petition the court in late January. From a report: The UK's highest court denied Assange's bid because "the application does not raise an arguable point of law," according to a statement released by the court. Assange faces espionage charges relating to WikiLeaks' release of confidential US military records about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange could potentially face a 175-year jail sentence, though US officials said, if he's convicted, his sentence would likely be between four and six years.

Facebook parent Meta Platforms clarified on Sunday that it is against the company's user rules to share a post that "calls for the death of a head of state" -- likely a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin. From a report: Last week, Facebook temporarily relaxed its policies so that Ukrainian users could post threats of violence against the Russian military, which invaded its neighbor in late February. The change led to some public confusion as to what was allowed, and what was not, on Facebook and Instagram. Meta's President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg posted a statement Friday saying the move is aimed at protecting Ukrainian rights and doesn't signal tolerance for "discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians." On Sunday, he tried to further explain the company's stance to employees in an internal post. "We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general," Clegg wrote in the internal post, which was reviewed by Bloomberg.

Slashdot reader quonset shares this report from Reuters: Instagram users in Russia have been notified that the service will cease as of midnight on Sunday after its owner Meta Platforms said last week it would allow social media users in Ukraine to post messages such as "Death to the Russian invaders". An email message from the state communications regulator told users to move their photos and videos from Instagram before it was shut down, and encouraged them to switch to Russia's own "competitive internet platforms".

Meta, which also owns Facebook, said Friday that the temporary change in its hate speech policy applied only to Ukraine, in the wake of Russia's Feb. 24 invasion. The company said it would be wrong to prevent Ukrainians from "expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces"....

The message to Instagram users from the state media regulator, Roskomnadzor, described the decision to allow calls for violence against Russians as a breach of international law. "We need to ensure the psychological health of citizens, especially children and adolescents, to protect them from harassment and insults online," it said, explaining the decision to close down the platform.
"The tears were flowing Sunday among Russia's airbrushed Instagram influencers, who begged their followers in farewell posts to join them on alternative social media platforms..." reports the Washington Post: On the platform, emotions ran high Sunday among Russians who were about to lose thousands of dollars they received to promote various products, as well as access to millions of followers amassed over the years. "I'm writing this post now and crying," Olga Buzova, a Russian reality television star, wrote, saying she hoped "it's all not true and we will remain here...."

The ban on Instagram is the latest example of how Russia's citizens are being isolated from the rest of the world as a result of Moscow's war against Ukraine. Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion on Feb. 24, his government has also pulled the plug on Russia's opposition-oriented radio and television networks, part of a broader effort to squelch domestic dissent in response to the war. Thousands of Russians have been arrested for attempting to protest the invasion.... But perhaps no move is more isolating than removing Russians from social media platforms that connect them directly to other users around the world. Instagram counted nearly 60 million users in Russia in 2021, according to the market data firm Statista, about 40 percent of the country's population. The platform is also a huge revenue source for its users, who rake in cash from sponsors by posting promotional content.
"We know that over 80 percent of people in Russia on Instagram follow an account from outside of Russia," Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video, according to the Post's article.

It adds that "It is unclear how many Russians will continue to be able to access Instagram using Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs."

The Washington Post shares a story that hasn't been previously disclosed. "Russian agents came to the home of Google's top executive in Moscow to deliver a frightening ultimatum last September: take down an app that had drawn the ire of Russian President Vladimir Putin within 24 hours or be taken to prison." Google quickly moved the woman to a hotel where she checked in under an assumed name and might be protected by the presence of other guests and hotel security, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The same agents — believed by company officials to be from Russia's FSB, a successor to the KGB intelligence service — then showed up at her room to tell her the clock was still ticking.

Within hours, an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin could no longer be downloaded from Google or Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly harrowing sequence....

The unnerving encounters, which have not previously been disclosed, were part of a broader campaign that Putin intensified last year to erode sources of internal opposition — moves now helping him maintain his hold on power amid a global backlash over the invasion of Ukraine. In a single year, Putin had his political nemesis Alexei Navalny imprisoned after a poisoning attempt failed to kill him; pushed independent news outlets to the brink of extinction; orchestrated a Kremlin-controlled takeover of Russia's Facebook equivalent; and issued "liquidation" orders against human rights organizations.

Amid this internal offensive, Putin also moved to bring foreign technology companies to heel. Moscow deployed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians' access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed fines totaling $120 million on firms accused of defying Kremlin censors, and ordered 13 of the world's largest technology companies to keep employees in Russia and thus exposed to potential arrest or other punishment for their employers' actions — a measure that U.S. executives refer to as the "hostage law."

On their own, these moves were seen as disparate signs of Russia' descent into authoritarianism. But they also laid the groundwork for the Soviet-style suppression of free expression now underway in Russia, much as the months-long military buildup set the stage for the invasion of Ukraine.
The article also notes "preliminary evidence that the suppression strategy is working. "Polls, whose reliability is always uncertain in Russia, show that a majority of Russians support the war. In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral online, Russians who rely on state-controlled media have consistently echoed Kremlin falsehoods about eradicating alleged Nazism in Ukraine while seeming to be genuinely oblivious to the war's carnage."

The article also notes how Apple is responding to Ukraine's crisis — but also includes this anecdote: Apple has similarly kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to placate the Kremlin. The company last year began configuring iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, enabling users to activate them with a single click. It is an accommodation Apple has rarely made elsewhere and advances Putin's goal of migrating Russian people to platforms controlled by the government, according to Russia analysts.

From CNN: India said on Friday it had accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan this week because of a "technical malfunction" during routine maintenance, giving its version of events after Pakistan summoned India's envoy to protest.

Military experts have in the past warned of the risk of accidents or miscalculations by the nuclear-armed neighbors, which have fought three wars and engaged in numerous smaller armed clashes, usually over the disputed territory of Kashmir... Tensions have eased in recent months, and the incident — which may have been the first of its kind — immediately raised questions about safety mechanisms.

"On 9 March 2022, in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile," the Indian Ministry of Defence said in a three-paragraph statement. "It is learnt that the missile landed in an area of Pakistan. While the incident is deeply regrettable, it is also a matter of relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident." The ministry said the government had "taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry."

Pakistani officials said the missile was unarmed and had crashed near the country's eastern city of Mian Channu, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader ami.one for sharing the news...

According to the latest updates from CNN, Ukraine's defense ministry claims Russia is planning to carry out "some sort of terrorist attack at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant" and blame Ukraine. The plant is currently without power and under Russian control. From the report: The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defence claimed on its Facebook page Friday that "the available intelligence says Putin has ordered that his troops to prepare a terror attack at Chernobyl for which the Russian invaders will try to blame Ukraine." The directorate also repeated that the plant "remains completely disconnected from the monitoring systems run by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence also alleged Friday that Russian forces had denied a Ukrainian repair team access to Chernobyl. It claimed without offering evidence that "Belarusian specialists" went there posing as nuclear power experts and that Russian saboteurs were arriving to set up a terror attack. The ministry claimed that "without receiving the desired result from the ground military operation and direct talks, Putin is ready to resort to nuclear blackmail of the international community."

The IAEA said last week that it had not been able to re-establish communication with systems installed to monitor nuclear material and activities at either the Chernobyl or Zaporizhzhia plants following the loss of remote data transmissions from those systems. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Thursday that the situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, occupied by the Russian forces, was degrading as the IAEA was losing "a significant amount of information" on safeguarding monitoring systems. However, he said he was "quite encouraged [...] on one important thing, is that Ukraine and Russian Federation want to work with us, they agree to work with us." "Both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly claimed without substantiation that the other side is planning to provoke an incident involving nuclear, chemical or biological agents," notes CNN.

On Wednesday, Russian's foreign ministry claimed that the U.S. operates a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, "an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Washington and Kyiv," reports Reuters.

The World Health Organization advised Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens housed in the country's public health laboratories to prevent "any potential spills" that would spread disease among the population, the agency told Reuters on Thursday. From the report: Biosecurity experts say Russia's movement of troops into Ukraine and bombardment of its cities have raised the risk of an escape of disease-causing pathogens, should any of those facilities be damaged. Like many other countries, Ukraine has public health laboratories researching how to mitigate the threats of dangerous diseases affecting both animals and humans including, most recently, COVID-19. Its labs have received support from the United States, the European Union and the WHO.

In response to questions from Reuters about its work with Ukraine ahead of and during Russia's invasion, the WHO said in an email that it has collaborated with Ukrainian public health labs for several years to promote security practices that help prevent "accidental or deliberate release of pathogens." "As part of this work, WHO has strongly recommended to the Ministry of Health in Ukraine and other responsible bodies to destroy high-threat pathogens to prevent any potential spills," the WHO, a United Nations agency, said. The WHO would not say when it had made the recommendation nor did it provide specifics about the kinds of pathogens or toxins housed in Ukraine's laboratories. The agency also did not answer questions about whether its recommendations were followed. On Wednesday, Russian's foreign ministry claimed that the U.S. operates a biowarfare lab in Ukraine, "an accusation that has been repeatedly denied by Washington and Kyiv," reports Reuters. A spokesperson for the ministry went on to claim that Russian forces unearthed documents in Ukraine that showed "an emergency attempt to erase evidence of military biological programs" by destroying lab samples.

Not only has Ukraine denied these allegations, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby called them "laughable" and suggested Moscow could be laying the groundwork to use a chemical or biological weapon.

Social media posts debunking purported Ukrainian disinformation are themselves fake. That doesn't stop them from being featured on Russian state TV. ProPublica: Researchers at Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub and ProPublica identified more than a dozen videos that purport to debunk apparently nonexistent Ukrainian fakes. The videos have racked up more than 1 million views across pro-Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram, and have garnered thousands of likes and retweets on Twitter. A screenshot from one of the fake debunking videos was broadcast on Russian state TV, while another was spread by an official Russian government Twitter account.

The goal of the videos is to inject a sense of doubt among Russian-language audiences as they encounter real images of wrecked Russian military vehicles and the destruction caused by missile and artillery strikes in Ukraine, according to Patrick Warren, an associate professor at Clemson who co-leads the Media Forensics Hub. "The reason that it's so effective is because you don't actually have to convince someone that it's true. It's sufficient to make people uncertain as to what they should trust," said Warren, who has conducted extensive research into Russian internet trolling and disinformation campaigns. "In a sense they are convincing the viewer that it would be possible for a Ukrainian propaganda bureau to do this sort of thing."

On February 24, Russian forces seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant and took its staff hostage, causing radiation levels to increase about 20-fold from all the heavy military vehicles stirring contaminated soil in the exclusion zone surrounding the plant. Today, the Ukrainian government warned that the abandoned nuclear power plant, including other nuclear facilities nearby, no longer have electricity after a power line was damaged. Axios reports: A loss of power at the plant could disrupt the cooling of radioactive material stored there, risking radioactive leakage that can be carried by wind to other parts of Europe. [...] "About 20,000 spent fuel assemblies are stored in the spent nuclear fuel storage facility-1. They need constant cooling, which is possible only if there is electricity. If it is not there, the pumps will not cool. As a result, the temperature in the holding pools will increase," the Ukrainian government said. "After that evaporation will occur, that will lead to nuclear discharge. The wind can transfer the radioactive cloud to other regions of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Europe. In addition, there is no ventilation inside the facility," it added.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Wednesday that Ukraine had informed it of the power outage and called it a violation of a "key safety pillar" but saw "no critical impact on safety" in this case. The agency's director general said Tuesday that it was no longer receiving data monitoring systems installed at the plant and other facilities and that the handling of nuclear material in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone had been put on hold. "I'm deeply concerned about the difficult and stressful situation facing staff at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the potential risks this entails for nuclear safety. I call on the forces in effective control of the site to urgently facilitate the safe rotation of personnel there," IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said Tuesday.

Red Hat, the Raleigh-based open-source software company, said Tuesday it is halting all sales and services to companies in Russia and Belarus -- a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has put Red Hat employees in harm's way. Raleigh News & Observer reports: Paul Cormier, Red Hat's chief executive officer, announced the decision in an email to employees, saying: "As a company, we stand in unity with everyone affected by the violence and condemn the Russian military's invasion of Ukraine." Red Hat's announcement comes a day after its parent company, IBM, which also has a large presence in the Triangle, suspended all business operations in Russia.

"While relevant sanctions must guide many of our actions, we've taken additional measures as a company," Cormier wrote. "Effective immediately, Red Hat is discontinuing sales and services in Russia and Belarus (for both organizations located in or headquartered in Russia or Belarus)." Red Hat said it has approximately two dozen employees in Ukraine, which has become an important tech hub in Eastern Europe in recent years. It is home to tens of thousands of contractors and employees for U.S. firms. In his email, Cormier said that Red Hat has helped dozens of employees and family members in Ukraine relocate to safer locations. Many of them have gone to neighboring Poland, he noted. [...] However, Ukraine has barred men ages 18 to 60 from leaving the country, meaning many of Red Hat's employees can't be relocated from the country. We "continue to help those who remain in the country in any way possible," Cormier wrote.

In mid-February, hackers gained access to computers belonging to current and former employees at nearly two dozen major natural gas suppliers and exporters, including Chevron, Cheniere Energy and Kinder Morgan, according to research shared exclusively with Bloomberg News. From the report: The attacks targeted companies involved with the production of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, and they were the first stage in an effort to infiltrate an increasingly critical sector of the energy industry, according to Gene Yoo, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Resecurity, which discovered the operation. They occurred on the eve of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when energy markets were already roiled by tight supplies.

Resecurity's investigation began last month when the firm's researchers spotted a small number of hackers, including one linked to a wave of attacks in 2018 against European organizations that Microsoft attributed to Strontium, the company's nickname for a hacking group associated with Russia's GRU military intelligence service. The hackers were looking to pay top dollar on the dark web for access to personal computers belonging to workers at large natural gas companies in the U.S., which were used as a back door into company networks, Yoo said. The researchers located the hackers' servers and found a vulnerability in the software, which allowed them to obtain files from the machines and see what the attackers had already done, Yoo said.