Ukraine accused Russian forces on Sunday of firing rockets into the land of a Russian-held nuclear power plant in the south of the country, adding to the risk of an accident at a complex that the agency has claimed. The United Nations nuclear agency said. the principles of Nuclear safety has been violated. A pro-Russian regional official blamed Ukrainian forces for the attack.
According to Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, the missiles fired on Saturday night landed near a dry fuel storage depot, which holds 174 barrels, each containing 24 spent nuclear fuel clusters. , according to Energoatom, a Ukrainian nuclear energy company. One person was injured by shrapnel and several windows were damaged.
The company said in a post on the social messaging app Telegram: “Apparently, they specifically targeted used fuel containers, which were stored outdoors near the site of the shelling.
Three radiation detection screens were damaged, so “timely detection and response in the event of an exacerbating radiation situation or radiation leak from spent nuclear fuel tanks is now impossible,” the post said, adding that a disaster was “miraclely avoided.”
Russian forces have controlled the Zaporizhzhia plant since March. The representative of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence Service, Andrei Yusov, said that Russia shelled the site to destroy infrastructure and damage power lines supplying Ukraine’s national power grid and ultimately also caused power outages in the southern part of the country. There is no independent confirmation of the assertion.
The head of the pro-Russian government in Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram on Sunday that Ukrainian forces used a Uragan cluster missile to target a spent fuel storage area and damage administrative buildings.
On Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine carried out an artillery attack on the plant. During a national television program by phone Sunday, the head of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia regional military government, Oleksandr Starukh, said there was only a three-second delay between the firing and landing of each projectile. , use this as proof of the attack. came from nearby Russian forces.
Since invading Ukraine in February, Russia has prioritized seizing critical infrastructure including power plants, ports, transportation, storage, and agricultural production facilities. It has also targeted infrastructure in Ukrainian hands.
In an earlier post, Energoatom said that the Russian fire damaged a combined nitrogen-oxygen unit and ancillary building. The post said: “There are still risks of hydrogen leaks and splashing of radioactive materials, and the risk of fire is also very high.
Yusov also said on Telegram that Russian forces had placed mines at the power units of the plant.
Concerns about safety in Zaporizhzhia It has been around since March, when a fire broke out in a building during fighting controlled by Russian forces. Ukrainian authorities say that Russian forces have since stored weapons, including artillery, at the plant, and in recent weeks they began shelling Nikopola nearby city held by Ukraine, from positions on its base.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a speech late Saturday that there had been a “significant deterioration of the situation around the plant” and added that Russia had become the first country in the world ” using nuclear plants to fight terrorism”. On Sunday he spoke to the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, and said in a tweet that he had called for a stronger international response against Russia’s “nuclear terrorism”.
The prospect of a Ukrainian counter-offensive to regain land in Kherson province, southwest of Zaporizhzhia, also increased instability. Ukraine was the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident when, in 1986, a reactor fire broke out at the Chernobyl complex in the north of the country. There are no reports of radioactive leaks at Zaporizhzhia.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that a particular concern is the inability to access Zaporizhzhia for surveillance purposes. Ukrainian factory workers works under pressurepartly because Russian authorities suspect sabotage, and the exiled mayor of the nearby city of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, has said several workers have been questioned or have disappeared, and at least one has die.
