Enemies accuse each other of shelling nuclear plant

MOSCOW yesterday accused Kyiv of shelling a nuclear power station under its control, renewing safety fears over Europe’s largest plant.

Russian forces captured the Zaporizhzhya power station and surrounding areas in south-east Ukraine in March.

Western officials have sounded the alarm over Moscow’s use of the plant as a launchpad to fire at targets in nearby Ukrainian-held territories, with little chance of return fire.

The UN’S nuclear watchdog has warned that the situation at the occupied power plant is “out of control”.

Yesterday, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of hitting at least one of the plant’s power lines.

The plant is still run by its Ukrainian technicians but under Moscowinstalled management.

Russian state media claimed Ukrainian shells struck a high-voltage power line at the plant and said a fire had broken out on the premises. Power necessary for the safe functioning of its reactors had been subsequently cut off, the Interfax News Agency said.

In turn, Ukraine’s state nuclear power company Energoatom said Russian shelling had caused the damage. “Three strikes were recorded on the site of the plant, near one of the power blocks where the nuclear reactor is located,” an Energoatom spokesman said. “There are risks of hydrogen leakage and radioactive spraying. The fire danger is high,” they said, adding that initially there were no casualties.

However, Ukrainian authorities said the plant still worked and no radioactive leak had been detected.

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

A Western official has suggested Ukraine could feasibly strike Russian targets around the nuclear plant because it is built to withstand terrorist attacks, including by aircraft.

Kyiv used Us-supplied kamikaze drones last month to strike Russian weapons and troops sheltering between the plant’s cooling towers, some 150 yards from a reactor.

Separately, three grain ships left Ukrainian ports yesterday and the first inbound cargo vessel since the Russian invasion was due in Ukraine to load.

Vladmir Putin meanwhile was meeting Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, who is cultivating a role as a mediator in the war, in the Russian city of Sochi.