Ukraine nuclear fears grow
U.N. atomic watchdog warns of ‘increasingly unpredictable’ situation near plant.
KYIV, Ukraine — The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog expressed growing anxiety about the safety of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant near the front lines of fighting in Ukraine after the Moscowinstalled governor of the area ordered the evacuation of the city where most plant staff live.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi spent months unsuccessfully trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to prevent the war from causing a radiation leak.
Europe’s largest nuclear plant sits next to the occupied city of Enerhodar. Ukraine has regularly fired at the Russian side of the lines, while Russia has repeatedly shelled Ukrainianheld communities across the Dnipro River. The fighting has intensified as Ukraine prepares to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to reclaim ground taken by Russia.
Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-yearold woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at the city of Nikopol, about six miles across the river from the plant.
“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” Grossi warned Saturday.
The Ukrainian army’s general staff said Sunday that the evacuation from Enerhodar, the city near the plant, was underway.
Grossi said the evacuation suggested a further escalation. The Russia-installed governor of Ukraine’s partially occupied Zaporizhzhia province on Friday ordered civilians in the city and 17 other communities to leave the area.
“I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant,” Grossi said. Although none of the plant’s six reactors are operating because of the war, the station needs a reliable power supply for cooling systems essential to preventing a potentially catastrophic radiation disaster.
Analysts have for months pointed to the Zaporizhzhia region as one of the possible targets of Ukraine’s expected spring counteroffensive, speculating that Kyiv’s forces might try to choke off Russia’s “land corridor” to the Crimean peninsula and split Russian forces in two by pressing on to the Azov Sea coast.
Some of the fiercest ongoing fighting is in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces are still clinging to a position on the western outskirts.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Moscow’s forces had captured two more districts in the city’s west and northwest, but provided no details.
Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces on Saturday accused Russia of using phosphorus in the city and on Sunday released a video showing the telltale white fire from such munitions.
International law prohibits the use of white phosphorus or other incendiary weapons — munitions designed to set fire to objects or cause burn injuries — in areas where there could be concentrations of civilians.
It wasn’t possible to independently verify where the video was shot or when, but chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British army colonel, said it was clearly white phosphorus.
“This is being fired directly at Ukraine positions, and this would be a war crime,” he said. “I expect because the Russians have failed to take Bakhmut conventionally, they are now using unconventional tactics to burn the Ukrainian soldiers to death or to get them to flee.”
Russian forces haven’t commented on the claim.
In the south, an aide to the exiled Ukrainian mayor of the Russia-occupied coastal city of Mariupol said in a Telegram post Sunday that there was evidence that Moscow’s forces had intensified their transfer of tracked vehicles through the city and into Zaporizhzhia province.
Petro Andryushchenko said more vehicles were being spotted crossing Mariupol “every day.”
He posted a short video showing heavy trucks carrying armored vehicles along an expressway, without specifying where or when it was taken.
In Enerhodar, the first residents evacuated were those who took Russian citizenship after the capture of the city by Moscow early in the war, the Ukrainian army’s general staff said.
They were being taken to the Russia-occupied Azov Sea coast, about 120 miles to the southeast.
Grossi said the staff of the nuclear plant hadn’t been evacuated as of Saturday but most live in Enerhodar, and the situation has contributed to “increasingly tense, stressful and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.”
Elsewhere, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight killed six civilians and wounded four others in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to a Telegram update published Sunday by the local administration.
Five civilians were hurt in Donetsk province, the epicenter of the fighting, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported Sunday.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces overnight attacked Sevastopol in Russia-occupied Crimea with 10 drones, a Kremlin-installed official said on Telegram on Sunday. Three were shot down, the official said, adding that there was no damage.