A day before Russia invaded Ukraine, it sent four highly trained armed guards across the border on a special mission to deliver fuel to an aging nuclear power facility.
Reactors based on Soviet designs generate power across the former Cold War bloc, accounting for more than half of all electricity in Ukraine and around two-fifths in a swath of territory arcing from Finland to Bulgaria. So the fuel shipment was routine enough — until President Vladimir Putin ordered his army to war.
Russia and Ukraine agree the small security detachment arrived by train on Feb. 23 and was present as technicians unloaded a new batch of fuel rods at the Rivne Nuclear Power Plant 340 kilometers (210 miles) west of Kyiv. They differ wildly over what happened to the so-called Atomspetstrans guards as fighting began.