Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced NATO’s rejection of appeals to impose a “no fly” zone over the ex-Soviet state, saying the decision made leaders of the Alliance responsible for all deaths occurring in Russia’s mass offensive.

Russia’s pressed on with its drive to shell Ukrainian cities into submission, taking a stranglehold on the southern port of Mariupol and taking aim at Mykolayiv and Odesa further west. Shelling continued in the already shattered city of Chernihiv and Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and several towns outside Kyiv were left largely in ruins. A long Russian military convoy slowly approached the capital.

The Russian parliament approved legislation providing for long jail sentences for media found guilty of disseminating misinformation, prompting major news outlets like the BBC, Bloomberg and CBS, ABC and CNN to halt operations. Nearly all of the few remaining independent Russian news outlets have already shut down.

Western diplomats at the U.N. Security Council said Russian actions in capturing Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant came dangerously close to triggering a nuclear catastrophe.

A clearly furious Zelensky lashed out at NATO leaders for failing to impose the no-fly zone he and a number of other senior officials have sought on grounds it could spark broader conflict with Moscow.

“Knowing that new strikes and casualties are inevitable, NATO deliberately decided not to close the sky over Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his latest video aired late in the evening.

The summit in Brussels was “weak and lost”, he said, and NATO’s inaction “gave a green light” to further bombardment.

“All the people who will die from this day will die because of you, as well,” he said, addressing NATO’s leaders. “Because of your weakness. Because of your disunity.”

Leaders of the Alliance resisted the calls for the zone despite ample evidence of the mass destruction of Ukrainian cities at Russia’s military pours through the country. NATO leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, have long ruled out the dispatch of troops to Ukraine – on grounds that the ex-Soviet state is not a member of the Alliance.

NATO says“no fly” zone too dangerous

“The only way to implement a no-fly zone is to send NATO fighter planes into Ukraine’s airspace, and then impose that no-fly zone by shooting down Russian planes,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.

“We have a responsibility as NATO allies to prevent this war from escalating beyond Ukraine. So we have made it clear that we are not going to move into Ukraine, neither on the ground nor in Ukrainian airspace.”

Ukrainian cities continued to bear the brunt of Russia’s onslaught.

Mariupol, seen as a key target for Russian troops, was subjected to constant shelling and its residents have been without water or heat for several days. Its capture would provide Russia with a land bridge between Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, and two separatist areas in eastern Ukraine run by Moscow proxies for eight years.

“For now, we are looking for solutions to humanitarian problems and all possible ways to get Mariupol out of the blockade,” Mariupol Mayor Vadim Boychenko said in a message posted on his Telegram account.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed at their second round of talks to work on opening humanitarian corridors to led out residents and bring in supplies.

Aerial attacks in Chernihiv, north of Kyiv, destroyed high-rise apartments buildings and damaged a clinic and hospital. Russian forces launched an assault on the southern city of Mykolayiv in their push towards the major port of Odesa.

An estimated 1.2 million Ukrainians had already crossed into foreign countries – mainly Poland and Moldova – to try to escape the carnage.

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant near Zaporizhya in central Ukraine was now in hands of Russian troops after a confrontation triggered a fire in one of the facility’s buildings on Thursday, extinguished by local firefighters.

Western leaders accused Russia of shelling the plant – an allegation Moscow denied – and said their action had brought Ukraine, and Europe, to the brink of a nuclear disaster in the very country where the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe had originated.

“Catastrophe averted”

“By the grace of God, the world narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe last night,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the U.N. Security Council at an emergency session.

Putin, she said, “must stop this madness, and stop it now”. She added that Russian troops were now advancing on a second plant, the South Ukraine nuclear power station.

Britain’s ambassador, Barbara Woodward, said the firefight was “the first time a state has attacked a fueled and functioning nuclear power plant”.

Russia’s ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said his country’s forces had come under attack and returned fire while patrolling outside the plant, where only one of six reactors was working. He said the Ukrainians then set the building ablaze.

In Moscow, the State Duma lower house of parliament, approved legislation providing for prison terms of five to 15 years for spreading “fake” news about the Russian armed forces and what authorities refer to as the “military operation” in Ukraine.

Major Western news organisations immediately announced they were halting news operations in Russia – including the BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, ABC and CNN.

BBC director-general Tim Davies said: “This legislation appears to criminalise the process of independent journalism. It leaves us no other option than to temporarily suspend the work of all BBC News journalists and their support staff within the Russian Federation while we assess the full implications of this unwelcome development.”

The BBC Russian and Ukrainian services would continue to operate from outside Russia..

The two principal remaining Russian liberal news outlets – Echo of Moscow Radio and Dozhd television in St. Petersburg were closed down this week. Russia also blocked access to Facebook.

The United States imposed fresh sanctions on Russian business magnates on Friday – targeting members of the Russian elite, their families and close associates, cutting them off from the US financial system.

“The goal is to maximise the impact on Putin,” Biden said.

The war and U.S. sanctions have already severely affected Russian markets and its business committee. The Moscow stock exchange remained closed all week and the rouble lost about a third of its value and is now worth less than 1 U.S. cent.

The latest companies to announce their decision to stop operations in the country included Samsung and Hermes.