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There’s also the matter of a large campaign donation from a relative who says they never gave Santos any money.
- Claimed to have been the target of an assassination attempt
- Claimed to have been mugged in broad daylight on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 55th Street
- Told a roommate he was a male model who’d be appearing in Vogue
- Told the same roommate that as a result of his work during Fashion Week, he’d palled around with Victoria’s Secret models
- Told would-be investors in the firm he worked at—which was accused by the SEC of operating a Ponzi scheme—that he did deals with some of the richest and most powerful people in finance
Again, all of this came to light just last week! And that’s on top of the unearthed lies that came before, including the ones about having grandparents who fled the Holocaust and having been a star player on the Baruch College volleyball team!
So you’d think, given all we know, that there’d be very little left to come out about the guy, or few new avenues to probe. And yet, apparently, you’d think wrong.
Here’s what’s emerged in just the last few days.
The alleged scamming of a disabled veteran and his dying service dog is getting the FBI treatment
On Wednesday, Politico reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had launched a probe of an alleged GoFundMe scheme by Santos. That scheme, according to disabled veteran Richard Osthoff, involved Santos setting up a GoFundMe to solicit money to pay for surgery for Osthoff’s service dog, Sapphire, raising $3,000, and then absconding with the cash. Sapphire died in 2017, and Osthoff says he contemplated suicide over the experience with Santos. According to the veteran, he was contacted this week by two agents on behalf of the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. And it’s possible the case could result in criminal charges for Santos sooner rather than later.
Per Politico:
Joshua Schiller, a senior trial lawyer who has practiced in the Eastern District, said the veteran’s encounter with Santos could offer prosecutors a quick way to hit the Republican congressman with criminal charges even though they’re also investigating heftier possible financial crimes. “I think there is an urgency here because Santos is currently in a position to make laws,” Schiller said. “I can think of examples where the government used a lesser indictment to seize assets and try to cause the defendant to plea to a deal before bringing a second or third indictment on more serious charges, and I bet that is the case here.”
Is Sapphire looking down at all of this with glee, and maybe also haunting Santos as he walks the halls of Congress? Seems likely.
(Santos has denied Osthoff’s claims, calling them “fake.”)
Relative who Santos claimed made a top dollar donation to his campaign has no idea what he’s talking about
Bold lies about the Holocaust and male-modeling jobs aside, one major source of potential trouble for Santos involves campaign finance laws. In addition to questions about the source of large campaign loans, and dozens of expenditures that all came in just one cent below the amount for which Santos would have to provide receipts, new reporting suggests a donation made in a relative’s name was not on the up-and-up.
Per Mother Jones:
According to Santos’s campaign filings with the Federal Election Commission, his recent campaign pulled in more than $45,000 from relatives who lived in Queens. This included a mail handler who gave more than $4,000, a painter who donated the maximum of $5,800, and a student who also contributed $5,800. One of Santos’s relatives, who was recorded as giving $5,800, says that they did not make any donation to Santos.
On Tuesday, a Mother Jones reporter visited the Queens home of this relative. Informed that two donations of $2,900 each were listed under this person’s name and address in Santos’s campaign finance reports, the relative, who asked not to be identified, said, “I’m dumbfounded.” The relative had no idea where the money for these donations came from and remarked, “It’s all news to me.” This person added, “I don’t have that money to throw around!” The relative’s account raises the possibility that money was improperly donated to Santos’s most recent campaign.
As Mother Jones notes, it’s against the law to make a contribution under a false name or someone else’s name. “It’s called a contribution in the name of another,” Saurav Ghosh, a campaign finance expert, told the outlet. “It’s something that is explicitly prohibited under federal law.” Santos and his lawyer did not respond to Mother Jones’s requests for comment.
A top aide dealing with his money matters up and quit
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Nancy Marks, Santos’s longtime campaign treasurer and “trusted aide,” had resigned. Maybe the move had nothing to do with Santos being a serial liar who has potentially committed crimes! Maybe she’s just looking to try a new career path! Maybe…uh, yeah, we can‘t think of any other reason she’d quit besides the obvious.
He hired a guy who did time for a gang execution to be his lawyer
Why did Santos hire a man who served time in prison for his role in an execution to defend him in his fraud case in Brazil back in the day? No, really, we’re asking.
Per the Daily Beast:
The lawyer Rep. George Santos (R-NY) chose to defend him in his fraud case in Brazil was convicted and jailed in connection with a gang execution, according to a report. Jonymar Vasconcelos, 47, was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2007 for his role in the fatal shooting of a mechanic three years earlier, São Paulo’s Folha newspaper reported Wednesday…. It’s unclear how Santos found Vasconcelos to defend him in his fraud case—in which it’s alleged the congressman paid for goods with a stolen checkbook in 2008—given that Vasconcelos is reportedly not affiliated with any law firm and does not list contact information online.
Approached by the outlet about the matter, Santos reportedly said that he couldn’t understand Portuguese—despite clearly speaking it fluently—and then failed to answer questions sent to him in English.
(Santos admitted to the alleged crime years ago, yet insisted in a recent interview: “I am not a criminal. Not here, not abroad, in any jurisdiction in the world have I ever committed any crimes.”)
Pleading the Fifth…to a reporter
Invoking one’s Fifth Amendment rights is generally reserved for legal matters, when one is under oath. And yet:
Santos is now refusing to answer questions. “I have a constitutional right to not answer questions,” he told me.
— Kate Santaliz (@kate_santaliz) February 1, 2023
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Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. (photo: Getty Images)
And yet, despite the reach of Bruen, I am fairly confident that five justices will reverse the 5th Circuit and uphold a variety of laws that our ancestors would have rejected, including the federal ban on owning a gun while subject to a restraining order for domestic violence. Why? Because I do not think five justices agree with Bruen. Yes, it was a 6–3 decision. Yes, every justice in the majority joined Thomas’ opinion in full. But one justice, Brett Kavanaugh, wrote a separate opinion laying out a different standard that cannot be squared with Thomas’. And another, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined him. Under the Kavanaugh-Roberts test, disarming alleged abusers—and other individual adjudged to be dangerous—is almost certainly constitutional.
It is almost never wise to be optimistic about this Supreme Court. And it is frightening to think that thousands of lives depend on Kavanaugh ruling the right way. But in this most unusual case, I think cautious confidence is in order.
To see why, just hold up Thomas’ and Kavanaugh’s opinions in Bruen side by side. Both justices agreed with the bottom line: New York’s concealed carry law, which required applicants to demonstrate a heightened need for self-defense, violates the Second Amendment. But take one step beyond that and the justices start to diverge. Thomas devotes his opinion to articulating a new legal test: Modern gun restrictions are “presumptively” unconstitutional unless they have enough “historical analogues” from the 18th and 19th centuries to prove that they are rooted in “this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That’s the test that the 5th Circuit used to find that the government cannot bar people from owning guns while they are under a restraining order for domestic violence.
Although Kavanaugh formally signed onto Thomas’ opinion, he spent the bulk of his separate concurrence recasting it as something very different. Kavanaugh wrote that he wanted “to underscore two important points about the limits” of Thomas’ opinion. First, he clarified that the decision does not affect “the existing licensing regimes” in 43 states that let any law-abiding adult carry a concealed weapon. “As the court explains,” Kavanaugh declared, “New York’s outlier may-issue regime is constitutionally problematic because it grants open-ended discretion to licensing officials and authorizes licenses only for those applicants who can show some special need apart from self-defense.” In other words, New York’s “outlier” law violates the Second Amendment because it grants state officials so much latitude in determining who deserves to carry a gun.
But that’s not actually what the court—that is, Clarence Thomas’ majority opinion—said! Thomas did not focus primarily on the problem of state officials’ “open-ended discretion.” He instead zeroed in on the ostensible lack of a historical basis for such stringent limits on concealed carry. These are two very different things! In his concurrence, Kavanaugh then went on to preemptively greenlight a variety of restrictions on concealed carry permits, including “fingerprinting, a background check, a mental health records check, and training in firearms handling and in laws regarding the use of force.” All these requirements, he declared, are “constitutionally permissible.”
Wait—they are? Why? Under Thomas’ test, that’s an open question: The government would have to demonstrate that in the 18th and 19th centuries, a critical mass of states forced citizens to jump through these hoops before acquiring a concealed carry permit. It’s extremely unlikely that states demanded fingerprinting (which did not exist at that time) or a background check (frequently impossible in an era with scarce, scattershot paper records) or a mental health records check (since the very concept of mental health was in its infancy). These requirements are only constitutional—indeed, obviously constitutional, per Kavanaugh—under a more lenient test. A test that, for instance, measures the importance of the government’s objectives against the burden on the individual’s rights. Yet Thomas expressly disclaimed this kind of “means-end scrutiny,” insisting that it is irrelevant how many lives a particular gun restriction might save.
Turn now to Kavanaugh’s second “important point” about “the limits” of Bruen. The justice reiterated a famous passage in D.C. v. Heller, the 2008 decision that first established an individual right to bear arms. In Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that this right “is not unlimited,” adding: “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. … We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.” Kavanaugh reprinted this entire passage just to endorse it.
Here’s the thing, though: Scalia did not want to add that passage to Heller. He only inserted it because Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote, asked for language limiting the decision’s reach. Kennedy knew he could extract this concession from Scalia as the price of his vote. Lower courts routinely cite that passage when upholding all manner of gun restrictions. By reprinting and endorsing it, Kavanaugh signaled that he was on board with at least some limits on firearms that “our ancestors” wouldn’t have liked. It’s true that people accused of domestic violence do not automatically fit into the category of “felons and the mentally ill.” But it stands to reason that if the government can disarm someone adjudged to be mentally ill in a civil proceeding, it can disarm someone adjudged to be a domestic abuser in a civil proceeding, as well.
If I am right that Kavanaugh (along with Roberts) sought to limit Bruen’s scope in his concurrence, the question arises: Why not force Thomas to tone down his opinion for the court? Why not follow the approach of his predecessor and mentor, Anthony Kennedy, and extract a concession in the form of a limiting principle or a more lenient test?
My suspicion is that Kavanaugh did not want to be accused of betraying the gun rights movement by watering down a landmark victory for the cause. It’s also possible, however, that Kavanaugh simply did not want to bother negotiating with Thomas when he could write his own opinion laying out a different vision of the Second Amendment. After all, the justice has a well-known habit—infuriating to conservatives—of limiting majority opinions through separate concurrences. Maybe he already knew Roberts would sign on, thereby sending an important message: There are not, in fact, five votes for the no-holds-barred assault on modern gun regulations that Thomas craves.
If there is any group of people whom the government has a good reason to disarm, it’s people accused of domestic abuse. These individuals are vastly more likely to kill their partners or commit mass shootings. To Thomas, this fact does not matter one bit. To Kavanaugh, I think it does. The 5th Circuit may be convinced that Bruen gave it carte blanche to invalidate every gun safety law under the sun. But its certitude may well be misplaced
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A Ukrainian soldier guards his position. (photo: Mstyslav Chernov/AP)
Two days after Putin's troops and tanks crossed the international border between Russia and Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Ukrainian government's Twitter accounts posted requests for cryptocurrency donations.
Blockchains are transparent publicly distributed ledgers, and since then Ukraine has been analysing where in the world that crypto-donations are being sent from.
The war-torn country has been able to identify that more than 100,000 people have sent aid to Ukraine via cryptocurrency channels.
"Donations to Ukraine has varied from one dollar to millions of dollars," Ukraine's deputy digital minister Alex Bornyakov told Yahoo Finance's The Crypto Mile.
"Crypto, in certain cases, offers an anonymous way to transfer money. We saw that some Russians were donating to us a significant sum," Bornyakov added.
"The Russian people who have donated have sent significant amounts of money.
"I understand that from within Russia there is no other way for them to do this other than through crypto."
The majority of crypto-donations received by Ukraine to date have been in bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ether (ETH-USD), although US dollar stablecoins have contributed a significant proportion.
One-third of the donated amount came through the Crypto Fund Aid For Ukraine initiative, which is powered by the Ukraine-based crypto platform Kuna and blockchain company Everstake, and supported by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine.
Among the most popular digital asset donations sent to Ukraine are, bitcoin, ethereum, cardano (ADA-USD), solana (SOL-USD), polkadot (DOT-USD) and stablecoins such as USDC (USDC-USD) and USDT (USDT-USD).
"So far Ukraine has received around 650 bitcoins, more than 10,000 ethereum, and there was also a significant amount of polkadot, almost 1.8 million in solana and $2.8m in the form of the USDC stablecoin," the deputy digital minister added.
Ukraine's crypto and blockchain industry
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion Ukraine cryptocurrency exchange Kuna has emerged as the largest crypto-fundraising platform in the country, an exchange founded by Ukrainian Mykhailo Chobanian in December 2015.
To cash out the crypto sent from around the world the Ukrainian government uses Kuna.
According to Crystal Blockchain Analytics, as of 30 November, over $184m in crypto assets have been raised in support of Ukraine.
These include a single transaction of $1.86m from the sale of NFTs created by Julian Assange and Pak.
And, a CryptoPunk NFT worth approximately $200,000 was also sent to the Ukraine government's Ethereum account.
The Ukrainian NGO 'Come Back Alive', which supports the nation's military, received several million dollars in crypto donations as reported in research by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
However, crowdfunding and content creating platform Patreon suspended Come Back Alive's page on 24 February for policy violations related to its military activities.
Donation in crypto can be made via the website for individuals who wanted to send cryptocurrency as aid to the country and its citizens. However, since the collapse of FTX in November 2022 the link to the website now redirects to the official Ukrainian government donation website.
Crypto proved to be a real life saver thanks to its ease of use. We at @mintsyfra made crypto donations even easier. Together with @everstake_pool and @FTX_Official we announce https://t.co/8LsgXj0HSB — a website where you can donate crypto to save Ukraine.
— Alex Bornyakov (@abornyakov) March 14, 2022
Ukraine's war-battered economy
Since Russia's recent missile strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure, nation-wide electricity rationing is in place. The window in which Bornyakov could conduct the interview with Yahoo Finance UK was limited.
The Russian invasion has significantly impacted Ukraine's economy. The country has faced declining industrial production, rising inflation, and a depreciating currency.
The loss of Crimea and its industries when Russia annexed the region in February 2014 has also disrupted trade and investment, leading to a decrease in Ukraine's Gross Domestic Product and a rise in unemployment.
Additionally, the country has also had to cope with increased military spending and supporting internally displaced persons, further exacerbating the economic impact.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that the conflict has cost Ukraine at least one-third of its GDP in 2022. With Ukraine's own economic data posting a 30.4% drop in GDP since the beginning of the war.
"In 2022, the Ukrainian economy suffered its largest losses and damages in the entire history of independence, inflicted on it by the Russian Federation," Ukrainian economy minister Yulia Svyrydenk, who is also first deputy prime minister, said in statement in January.
The decline in GDP as also been described as the biggest in any year since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Ukraine DAO and Russian political activist Nadya Tolokonnikova
In July 2022, leading political activist and member of Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova told The Crypto Mile that NFTs can make powerful statements of civil disobedience and protest.
Tolokonnikova co-founded Ukraine DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation), which raised $6.75m (£5.66m) in ethereum in five days for organisations that help Ukrainians suffering from the war that has devastated their country. The funds were raised by selling an NFT depicting the Ukrainian flag.
Speaking on Episode 4 of The Crypto Mile, she said NFTs can be used to advance political causes: "Ukraine DAO has actually allowed a lot of people from Russia to donate to Ukraine, otherwise they would not have been able to send money because it is blocked by the Russian banking system."
Although the blockchain is a publicly visible distributed ledger recording all transactions in a transparent way, the system is out of reach of centralised authority and the crypto wallets that send and receive funds can remain anonymous.
Read more: UK unveils 'world-first' plans to regulate crypto and digital assets
"When you raise money for activism it is often for very sensitive topics that can potentially lead to trouble, so crypto can provide a layer of anonymity," Tolokonnikova said.
The co-founder of art-activist group Pussy Riot also launched Unicorn DAO in May 2022.
Unicorn DAO has pledged to use the NFT space to "redistribute wealth and visibility in order to create equality for women-identified and LGBTQ+ people".
The movement cites a report from 2021 by ArtTactic, that found only 5% of NFT sales were by female-identified artists.
The integration of NFTs, DAOs, and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) is transforming the way charities gather donations and distribute funds to those in need.
Crypto advocates have told news outlet Cointelegraph that the new technology has led to the creation of "new wealth distribution mechanisms".
According to crypto-author Anne Connelly, every organisation will eventually have a crypto donation platform, just like they accept credit cards.
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Demonstrators in Memphis respond after video was released showing how Tyre Nichols was beaten by five Memphis police officers. (photo: Chris Day/Jackson Sun)
Memphis police said that former officer Preston Hemphill was fired after a "thorough review" found that he violated "multiple department policies," including "personal conduct" and "truthfulness." He also violated regulations regarding the use of a Taser, "issued equipment," and "inventory and processing recovered property."
Earlier this week, Hemphill was one of two more officers who were placed on administrative leave in connection with the Nichols' case. The other officer has not been identified. Hemphill had been with the department since March 2018, police said.
Bodycam and surveillance video showed the 29-year-old Nichols being violently assaulted during a traffic stop on Jan. 7. He died three days later from his injuries, on Jan. 10.
In a statement Monday, the department said Hemphill was under investigation for his participation in the "initial traffic stop" of Nichols "and the use of a Taser."
Lee Gerald, an attorney representing Hemphill, told CBS News on Monday that his client "was the third officer at the initial [traffic] stop of Mr. Nichols" and "was never present at the second scene," where video footage showed police beating Nichols at a nearby intersection. The first of four tapes documenting the arrest was taken from Hemphill's body camera footage, according to Gerald.
Hemphill is one of now six officers who have been fired in connection with the Nichols' arrest. The other five have been charged with second-degree murder. They have been identified as Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III and Justin Smith.
Police initially said that Nichols was stopped for reckless driving, and alleged that, as officers approached him to make an arrest, a "confrontation" occurred and he ran away. A second "confrontation" also occurred at some point before Nichols was ultimately arrested, police said.
However, four videos released last week, which including footage from police body cameras and street surveillance cameras, showed officers first removing Nichols from his vehicle after pulling him over, an initial struggle when Nichols breaks loose and runs away from the officers, and then disturbing images of Nichols being restrained and beaten by five officers at an intersection.
The videos showed Nichols being kicked and punched in the head while being restrained, pepper sprayed, and struck multiple times with a baton.
Speaking at Nichols' funeral Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris said that "this violent act was not in pursuit of public safety. It was not in the interest of keeping the public safe, because one must ask, was it not in the interest of keeping the public safe that Tyre Nichols would be with us here today? Was he not also entitled to the right to be safe?"
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The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. (photo: CNN)
The resettlement of Majid Khan, who struck a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors in 2012, represented the first time that one of the “high-value” prisoners sent from the secret CIA facilities to the military facility in Cuba in 2006 was freed, his attorneys said.
The nearly year-long delay in releasing Khan, whose 10-year sentence concluded in March, is evidence of the legal and political challenges that Biden must navigate in attempting to finally shut down the facility, which now holds 34 detainees but remains a potent symbol of American excesses in the wake of 9/11.
Free after two decades, Khan apologized for his past. The former Baltimore-area resident pleaded guilty a decade ago to taking part in al-Qaeda plots and later provided testimony in other terrorism cases.
“I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it,” he said in a statement released by his attorneys at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Jenner & Block.
The release caps a saga that began in 2003 when Khan, who was born in Saudi Arabia but later emigrated with his family to Maryland, was captured in Pakistan. He then endured beatings, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture at the hands of CIA interrogators at secret overseas prisons before being sent to Guantánamo.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Khan had honored his cooperation commitment. “We remain dedicated to a deliberate and thorough process, focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population,” she told reporters Thursday.
Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s national security project, called on Biden to take steps to resolve the fates of other prisoners stuck in a years-long military commission process where cases have been bogged down by logistical, security and legal hurdles, many of them related to their harsh treatment by interrogators.
In the meantime, she said, the government’s delay in resettling Khan “was calling into question the Biden administration’s commitment to resolving the Guantánamo quagmire.”
A State Department spokesman, who like some others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the administration, said officials were considering different options for Guantánamo’s remaining prisoners, many of whom now face health challenges that are expected to pose an increasing strain to the isolated facility’s capacity in the coming years.
“There are a lot of different moving pieces,” the official said.
In addition to the halting progress in the military trials, the White House faces legal constraints to moving prisoners at Guantánamo, including laws that prohibit the transfer of its inmates to the U.S. mainland and barring the repatriation of certain detainees to their home countries.
The challenges echo those confronted by Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama, who laid out closing Guantánamo as an early goal but did not deliver on that pledge. In contrast, Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, vowed — but never delivered — to load up the site with new prisoners.
While prosecutors and defense attorneys have taken part in discussions about potential plea deals for other detainees stuck in the labyrinthine commission process, it’s unclear whether those will result in plea deals similar to Khan’s. The vast majority of the nearly 800 men held at Guantánamo over the years were never charged with a crime.
Khan’s case illustrates the glacial pace and opacity that has often characterized proceedings at Guantánamo.
His story is unusual in other ways. By his own account, Khan attempted to adopt an American identity after his family emigrated to the United States from Pakistan in the 1990s. He considered joining the Navy and working for a technology company in Virginia after high school.
But when he returned to Pakistan, he became involved with al-Qaeda, meeting with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and taking part in militant plots, including couriering $50,000 to operatives who carried out a deadly hotel bombing in Indonesia.
As a captive, Khan was imprisoned at multiple CIA facilities abroad, where he endured brutal interrogation tactics including being submerged in ice water until he believed he was drowning, and being suspended naked from the ceiling by his wrists. He said he suffers lasting ailments from that treatment, which also included being hydrated anally after he went on hunger strike.
As part of his deal with prosecutors, Khan pleaded guilty to war crimes including murder and spying. He also vowed that he would never sue the U.S. government over his mistreatment.
“I deeply regret the things that I did many years ago, and I have taken responsibility and tried to make up for them,” he said in his statement.
A military jury urged clemency for Khan in part due to the “physical and psychological abuse well beyond approved enhanced interrogation techniques, instead being closer to torture performed by the most abusive regimes in modern history.”
Wells Dixon, a CCR attorney who represented Khan, described that letter as “a wake-up call” to the U.S. government that illustrated it would be “unlikely if not impossible” for government prosecutors to obtain a death sentence for Guantánamo prisoners charged in 9/11.
Twenty of the remaining prisoners are now eligible to be repatriated or sent to third countries, a task that presents its own challenges. While numerous detainees have been resettled, some have struggled after years of confinement and abusive treatment.
Khan’s lawyers filed a legal challenge in June protesting his continued imprisonment past his allotted sentence, which Dixon called a “clear violation of due process.”
A U.S. official said the delay was primarily because of the difficulty involved in finding a country that would take him. Dixon said the government had known since July 2021 that Khan’s sentence would conclude the following spring.
“Detainee transfers are often complicated and take time to complete, but there is no excuse for the fact that Majid Khan was held for a year beyond the conclusion of his military commission sentence,” he said.
Khan has a wife, and a daughter whom he has never met.
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Fyodor and his team. (photo: BBC)
With a dusting of fresh winter snow settling around us and the crackle of electricity loud in the wires over our heads, Michael runs his gloved fingers over golf ball-sized holes in the crippled hulk of a huge transformer.
Sharp metal fragments of the missile lie on the ground nearby.
Along the way, other transformers as big as bungalows are disappearing behind protective cocoons of concrete and sandbags.
Above us loom the high, forbidding, Soviet-era walls of the power plant's vast turbine hall. Panes of glass for half a mile shattered by explosions from the 12 missiles that have landed here since mid-October.
For all the well-publicised damage, the authorities don't want us to reveal too much.
Since October, when temperatures began to plummet, Russia has been using strikes on Ukraine's power grid to force the civilian population into submission. For two weeks, the BBC watched engineers and technicians who run the network racing to repair the damage and keep electricity flowing across the country.
We have been asked not to reveal the precise location of some of the facilities we visit. We've also altered the names of some of the officials we meet.
"Every time the equipment is damaged, it gets us all right here in our soul," Michael says, tapping his chest.
Some of these huge rust-stained machines are older than the men who run them. But for Michael, the plant's manager, they're his babies.
"It's our life. Our second family."
Michael sent his first family - his wife and teenage son - to Europe early in the war. Their dog, a playful golden retriever, now accompanies him to work every day.
The transformer - 130 tonnes of twisted metal, dangling wires and scorch marks where cooling oil leaked and caught fire - is not easy to replace.
"I know how much effort it takes to build this, to install and launch it," says Michael, a veteran of 30 years in this industry. "It's not something you can buy in a store."
The same goes for the turbines inside - monstrous, deafening mechanical dinosaurs, churning and hissing away at the heart of the plant. They're hugely impressive machines, but there's little time to admire them, as the air raid siren sounds for the third time this morning.
In a well-practised drill, most of the plant's staff head for the bunkers. The atmosphere is relaxed - such interruptions are commonplace - until word starts to spread of a fresh wave of Russian attacks on the power grid. A sister plant in the west has been hit. A picture circulates of fire raging in a turbine hall much like the one we were in just now.
Then, even through the thick concrete walls of our underground retreat, we hear a distant explosion. There's tension in the room as the men and women check their phones. A crowded apartment block, not far away, has been hit.
The scene, when we arrive soon after dark, is chaotic and desperate. A missile has torn a gaping hole in the middle of the nine-storey building. Thick smoke, pierced by flashlights, rises from a pile of rubble. Dozens of rescue workers and volunteers are working frantically to find survivors.
The death toll, which mounts inexorably over the coming days, is one of the highest of the war so far. Mothers, fathers, children. Whole families.
At the power station, the following morning, the mood is bleak. Everyone believes the missile was aimed at them.
"We need to stop the attacks," Michael says. "We need to close the sky over Ukraine."
Until that happens, Ukraine's entire grid will be in jeopardy. Especially substations, which have borne the brunt of Moscow's wrath. These vital hubs, where transformers turn high voltage electricity from power plants into lower mains voltage that businesses and homes can use, have been targeted over and over again.
Each hit deprives hundreds of thousands of households of electricity, forcing the state energy company, Ukrenergo, to find ways of diverting power along alternative routes. The firm agrees to give us rare access to a substation, on condition that we do not reveal its location.
On the day we visit, a frigid wind whistles across hundreds of miles of open farmland and a watery winter sun pokes through the clouds. The sprawling facility, with its maze of pylons, cables and imposing machinery, feels remote and impersonal, but around 15 million Ukrainians depend on it for power.
It's been hit six times with missiles and drones.
The manager, Serhiy, who's worked here for decades, surveys his shattered empire. Two of the devastated transformers are among the largest in the world, weighing more than 300 tonnes. The specialised steel innards of one of them have been torn out and lie folded on the ground, like the leaves of a clumsily discarded book.
Data collected by Kyiv's Energy Industry Research Centre (EIRC) suggests that about100 substation transformers, of various sizes, have been hit since October. Due to their cost and the many months it takes to manufacture them, not a single one has yet been replaced
Serhiy points out the gaping hole in the administration building, where a bookcase and dangling light bulb are pretty much all that's left of his office. He watched the destruction from 500m away, as a "kamikaze" drone tore into the building, wrecking the control room and taking the substation offline.
"We knew it would happen sooner or later," he says.
Repairing the damage will take years.
"They know perfectly well why this facility is important for Ukraine. That's why they decided to destroy it."
You must feel angry all the time, I suggest. Serhiy is a man of few words.
"Hate," he replies simply. "Hate towards those who came to kill my people."
With Western help and several months of experience, Ukraine is getting much better at defending itself. Most of the drones fired by Russia are now shot down before reaching their targets, and most of the missiles too. Data from EIRC shows fewer than 10% of the 1,400 missiles and drones fired at Ukraine's civilian infrastructure since early October have actually destroyed key components of the grid.
But it's still a scramble for the country's engineers to keep up.
Following reports of overnight shelling near the southern city of Nikopol, we join a repair team from DTEK, the country's largest private energy company, in the middle of a field, overlooking the Dnipro River. The sound of artillery booms across the wide, silver expanse of water. The battle lines aren't far from here.
The damage looks slight. A couple of shallow craters in the field and a few low voltage lines draped across Ukraine's famously dark soil.
But the nearby village of Vyschetarasivka is without power, yet again. The men, some wearing flak jackets, get to work, scaling the poles and twisting wires together. After the colossal scale of the power plant and substation, today's work feels almost delicate.
"This is pure terror," says chief engineer Volodymyr. "Just terrorising the population, causing maximum damage to the energy infrastructure."
Volodymyr would much prefer to keep busy modernising and improving Ukraine's electricity network. But he'll keep the repairs going just as long as the Russians keep firing.
"We feel a bit hopeless, not being able to influence the situation," he says. "But if necessary, we'll come back and repair the lines every day. The people need light."
In the village, half emptied by almost a year of war, the power cuts have become more frequent and less predictable.
"Electricity affects pumps and boilers," says Bohdan, as he arrives with empty bottles to collect water. "If there's no power, people freeze. And we have to buy water from the store. If you have a generator and petrol, you can survive. Otherwise, I don't know how older people do it."
The mayor, Oleksandr Sivak, wrapped up against the biting east wind, says those who can't stand it have already left.
"As long as we're alive and have even a bit of electricity and water, we'll keep on living," he says.
The sound of artillery is getting closer, forcing Oleksandr to drop to his knees. It's a sensible precaution, the result of long months of constant danger.
Downriver, beyond Nikopol, a town shelled day and night from Russian positions to the south, we meet another team repairing power lines, reconnecting communities under Russian occupation until the autumn. Here, amid the debris of recent conflict - a rocket lodged in the pavement, shattered headstones in a cemetery and a score of recently dug graves - the DTEK team must proceed with caution.
The use of anti-personnel mines along former front lines adds another element of hazard. Up ahead, State Emergency Service personnel are walking slowly along a line of pylons, inspecting the undulating ground for discarded ordnance.
"We feel like semi-soldiers," says team leader Fyodor, another grizzled veteran of the industry, as he pauses for a cigarette.
Above him, colleagues in a cherry picker are hard at work, hauling a new high voltage line up to a pylon.
"Sometimes we go on trips to restore power in an area. Then they shell us and we have to go back. It's a race."
For all the hardship we observe during two weeks on the road in Ukraine, it's a race the engineers seem to be winning. People grumble, for sure, when the lights go out, their apartments grow cold and the water stops flowing. Hospitals have reported higher numbers of road traffic accidents as motorists move around darkened city roads.
But away from the front lines, people have adjusted to the lack of electricity much as they have to the air raid sirens and occasional explosions: with pragmatism and ingenuity.
On city streets, in the middle of a blackout, portable generators churn away on pavements and down alleyways. In Kyiv, for all the midwinter gloom, shops are open, restaurants full. Walk into any motorway service station and the same scene greets you every time: brightly lit, well-stocked shelves, muzak playing and the hand-driers in immaculate toilets blasting out hot air.
You could be forgiven for thinking you were anywhere else in Europe. And that's the way those in charge of Ukraine's energy grid would like it.
"It was our aim for many years, to integrate into the European grid," says Oleksandr Kharchenko, EIRC's director. "And now it's happened."
Russia's energy war, just like its military campaign, is having the exact opposite of its desired effect. Far from separating Ukraine from Europe, it's binding it ever closer, in a process that mirrors the country's gradual integration into the Western military alliance, Nato.
Ukraine officially declared its desire to join the European grid in 2017. It's typically a lengthy process - it took Turkey 11 years - but when Vladimir Putin decided to invade last year, the process accelerated dramatically. In February last year Ukraine disconnected itself from the Russian grid for the first time, to test the country's ability to manage in "isolated mode" during the winter months, when demand for electricity peaks.
The disconnect, the first of two, was due to take place on the 18th and last just three days. The Russians requested a delay. It eventually happened at 01:00 on 24 February.
"We disconnected four hours before the invasion started, from this very building," Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, CEO of Ukrenergo, told me at his Kyiv headquarters.
"When the invasion started, it became obvious we would not reconnect."
Was the invasion timed to coincide with Ukraine's moment of maximum isolation?
"I absolutely believe the war started on the 24th just because of this," Kharchenko says.
Infrastructure was targeted in the early days, but not enough to plunge the country into chaos.
"They thought we would have a national blackout," Kharchenko says. "That this would cause panic, no connection, no government, no-one knows where the president is, how to connect with your siblings, your parents."
None of this happened.
Amid mounting speculation about Moscow's intentions in the weeks before 24 February, the company had quietly moved the grid's main control room to an undisclosed location further west. A second experimental disconnect was scheduled for June, when demand is typically low. If everything went according to plan, Ukraine would finally join the European grid in October 2023.
But with industry shutting down and millions of Ukrainians fleeing the country, electricity consumption plummeted by 40% within three days of the invasion. Ukrenergo asked its European partners if it could bring forward the second test.
"They looked at us like we were crazy," Kharchenko, who advises Ukrenergo, recalls.
But by 16 March, it was all done. With Russian troops still menacing the capital, Ukraine connected to the European grid, a year-and-a-half ahead of schedule. For a few months, Ukraine was even able to export its excess electricity.
That all stopped in October. Since then, the country has had to make do with half the electricity it had before 24 February.
But it hasn't collapsed.
"I think the reason is the same why they cannot win on the battlefield," Kudrytskyi says. "Because we were prepared and we were resolved to win this particular battle."
Ukraine has fought many battles over the past year.
In a sprawling, hilltop cemetery on the edge of the eastern city of Dnipro, hundreds of blue and yellow Ukrainian flags flap noisily in the stiff breeze. Rows of freshly dug graves await the latest casualties from the front, 100 miles to the east. Each cross, unmarked grave and rippling flag drives home the desperate cost of this war.
But overhead, rising against a fiery sunset, pylons march away across the landscape.
Ukraine is still connected.
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Bald eagles are protected under state and federal laws. (photo: Fred Thornhill/AP)
The fight to save the birds’ habitat ignites old frustrations over California’s engagement with tribal communities
Everyone was waiting for a pair of bald eagles to swoop into their nest, an orb of twigs and branches balanced amid the tree’s scraggly branches. The elusive raptors have nested here for years, renovating and upgrading it each year in preparation for hatchlings in the spring.
But this year, unless the eagles – who spend the fall and winter months away from their nests – were observed back at their tree by mid-January, they’d lose it.
That’s because Pacific Gas & Electric, the largest utility company in the US, had obtained a permit to chop down the ageing pine, arguing that it could fall on the company’s nearby power line and spark a catastrophic wildfire. Environmentalists and the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians countered that PG&E – which is facing increasing pressure to stop its equipment from starting fires across the state – should move their power lines instead.
Lawyers for the tribe beseeched the utility company to reconsider. Locals printed up signs to save the nest. In recent weeks, activists and tribal elders protested, prayed and physically barricaded themselves in front of the tree as PG&E crews came – alongside sheriff’s deputies – to cut it down.
“They had their cherry picker and their wood chipper ready,” said Polly Girvin, an environmental and Indigenous rights activist. “But we weren’t going to back down.”
Now, armed with binoculars and cell phones on a misty January morning, they were on watch. Bald eagles are protected under state and federal laws, and PG&E could only take down the tree so long as the nest was unoccupied or abandoned. “We need to keep proving that this is an active nest,” explained Girvin.
The eagles did come that day, arriving just as a thick rain began to roll in. A few days later, PG&E said it would back down.
But the showdown over this lone tree, near an electrical line that serves just a single property, has raised difficult questions about PG&E’s approach to fire safety and its fraught relationship with the communities it serves, many of whom live in rural, wildland areas.
The company is under growing legal and financial pressure to act after its power lines have been blamed for sparking multiple fires, including a deadly 2020 fire in northern Shasta county. Last year, it reached a $55m settlement with six counties over several other fires, including the Kincade fire and Dixie fire.
As PG&E rushes to trim trees and remove brush near its power lines to avert future catastrophes – and avoid liability – environmentalists worry that local nuances are being overlooked.
“PG&E says that the tree is dangerous, it’s a hazard – but that’s not right. It’s their lines that are the hazard,” said Naomi Wagner, a local activist with the environmental group Earth First!. “So why is it the tree that needs to go?”
During their recent bald eagle watch party, Wagner, Girvin and half a dozen other activists settled around to a small campfire that fizzled in the rain. Old-time environmentalists who’d been agitating since the 1960s were joined by their kids, grandkids and dogs. Coffee, muffins and binoculars were passed all around, along with warnings not to squeal or shout to avoid startling the eagles.
Priscilla Hunter, the former Coyote Valley chair squinted up and shifted closer to the fire. “It’s a miracle that they are here,” she said. Michael Hunter, the tribe’s current chair, jumped up. “Hey, birds, where are you at?”
Activists and tribal leaders, to whom the eagle holds cultural significance, have alleged that the power company and US Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly inform and consult with the tribe in deciding to remove the tree, which could remain standing and serve as a habitat for this eagle couple, or their offspring, for years to come.
And here was a bird that was not only sacred to Native American tribes, but also a symbol of the United States. And still, crews had come to take down the tree on 9 January – a day before National Save the Eagles Day. “I mean how clueless could PG&E be,” said Wagner.
Moreover, the owner of the property where the tree stands, as well as the residents who live there, all supported alternative solutions – including rerouting or burying the electric line, or setting up a solar microgrid.
In TV advertisements, PG&E has been promoting its plans to bury 10,000 miles of power lines underground to reduce the risk of them hitting trees, so why not do the same here? “I mean, come on,” Girvin said. “They just want to take the fast and easy route.”
Meanwhile, PG&E contended in public statements the tree “contains an inactive bald eagle’s nest, is a hazard and is at risk of failing and striking a PG&E line in a high fire-threat area”.
Ultimately, the company was proven wrong when eagles finally swooped in. They first arrived as activists and tribal elders sang and prayed beneath the tree, hours before PG&E crews arrived. And they returned each day afterwards. “It was magical,” said Girvin.
A few days later, PG&E issued a statement saying that it would bury the lines, after all. “This solution allows us to protect our hometowns while also taking into account the values of our local tribe, property owners and environmental advocates,” said Ron Richardson, vice-president of PG&E’s north coast region, in a statement to the Guardian.
It was a hard won concession – one that the activists will remain wary of until they receive a legally binding commitment to leave the tree standing. Though the company can’t take down a tree with nesting eagles, they could return if the eagles leave again. “It seems like you just have to expose how inefficient this is,” said Hunter, the Coyote Valley band chair.
This was already the second year that PG&E had tried to take down this tree. In 2022, as well, the eagle couple returned to their nest just in the nick of time to call off the saws. “And they had a baby!” said Joseph Seidell, a cannabis farmer who lives on the property and led early protests against PG&E’s plans. “I mean just look at this,” he gestured. “This giant pile of beautiful woven twigs holds this beautiful, sacred bird.”
In August, the utility company de-energized the overhead electrical line, just in case the tree did end up falling and sparking a blaze, and asked for Seidell’s agreement that he wouldn’t impede crews when they came to take down the tree in the future. “It was devastating,” he said.
The ordeal has left tribal leaders and environmentalists concerned that the utility company – and the government agencies that oversee and permit its fire safety plans – have failed to properly communicate and consult with communities before undertaking work that impacts important wilderness areas.
Although the Fish and Wildlife Service had sent a letter informing Hunter of PG&E’s intention to cut down the tree in December, lawyers representing the tribe alleged that authorities didn’t wait for a response and didn’t give tribal authorities enough time to review the permit over the holiday season.
The agency was unable respond to the Guardian’s request for comment before publication.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, which has a codified “trust responsibility” – a binding moral obligation – to tribes, could do more to engage with and consult with tribal governments, said Don Hankins, a pyrogeographer and Plains Miwok fire expert at California State University, Chico.
“There clearly needs to be better coordination on these sorts of things,” he said. After a two-year fight over one tree, he noted, it’s unclear why government officials and PG&E didn’t coordinate with tribal leaders sooner.
PG&E and the Fish and Wildlife Service do have policies to ensure that they don’t impact vulnerable species, Hankins said – but those laws and policies don’t always account for the complexities of specific environments.
In Mendocino county, where there is a dark history of logging in the 1800s, which decimated old-growth redwoods and violently displaced some Native villages, a lack of proper communication and care by PG&E and the Fish and Wildlife Service brings an extra sting.
And even now, the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians are involved in a protracted fight to curb commercial logging in the nearby Jackson Demonstration state forest, a nearly 50,000-acre area managed by the California department of forestry and fire prevention, or Cal Fire.
And although various government and private operators in this region have made some gestures toward working with local tribes with crucial, generational knowledge about the fragile landscapes here – they’ve often failed to meaningfully follow through, Girvin said.
Crews for various agencies have operated “willy nilly for years”, she said. “They haven’t cared at all about putting skid trails through sacred sites, or thought carefully about habitat protection and the species affected in the area.” These incursions can feel especially frustrating when the government for decades ignored, denied and criminalised traditional stewardship practices of tribes up and down California, she noted.
“To the settlers, whatever or whoever was in the way of doing business, they’d just cut down,” said Priscilla Hunter. “That’s what these eagles reminded me of.”
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