‘Safe’ for Ukraine to target nuclear plant

Ukraine can strike Russian targets around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant because it is built to withstand terror attacks, a Western official said yesterday, amid fears of a disaster on the scale of Chernobyl.

Russia has transformed the facility, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, into a “safe zone” in recent weeks.

Its forces have used it to launch artillery fire at targets in Ukrainian-held territories on the western bank of the Dniper river with little chance of return fire.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog has warned that Russian occupation of the power plant is “completely out of control” and that there is a serious risk of triggering an emergency akin to the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown.

With Russian kit, including highly combustible ammunition stored in its engine rooms, analysts believe that Moscow is using the threat of a nuclear meltdown at the site to deter future donations of heavy weaponry by Ukraine’s Western allies.

But in a briefing, the Western official said that Ukraine need not be deterred from striking Russian targets in the areas because the nuclear power station was built to withstand heavy attacks.

“Ukraine will consider very carefully how to avoid taking major risks around the site,” the source said.

“But I would bear in mind that nuclear power plants are designed to withstand terrorist attacks, including aircrafts hitting reactors.

“Please don’t think we’re looking at a Chernobyl-like situation . . . that’s not the case,” they added.

Kyiv last month used US-supplied kamikaze drones to strike Russian weapons and troops sheltering between the plant’s cooling towers, 135 metres from a reactor.

The Zaporizhzhya plant, in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, was captured by Russia in early March, days after its forces invaded Ukraine.

Kremlin forces on the ground had hoped it could be used as a base to repel a Ukrainian counter-offensive aimed at retaking Russian-held areas in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions, which is gaining momentum.

Meanwhile, an Amnesty International report says Ukrainian forces have exposed civilians to Russian attacks at times by basing themselves in schools, residential buildings and other places in populated areas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy angrily denounced the report, saying Amnesty International “tries to amnesty the terrorist state and shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.”