The Russian shell that struck in the night had taken away the wall of a top-floor apartment, and in its place was freezing air blowing off the Dnieper River – and a view of Europe’s biggest nuclear power station on the other bank.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s silhouette – with its two fat cooling towers and the row of six squat blocks – has become globally familiar since it was dubbed the most dangerous place on Earth: six nuclear reactors on the frontline of a catastrophic war.
On a fairly typical night last week, the Russians on the left bank of the river fired 40 shells and rockets into Nikopol, a town on the Ukrainian-held right bank, falling on its
