Renewed shelling threatens Ukrainian nuclear plant
KYIV, Ukraine — Powerful explosions shook Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the global nuclear watchdog said Sunday, calling for “urgent measures to help prevent a nuclear accident” in the Russian-occupied facility.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, said multiple explosions near the Zaporizhzhia plant abruptly ended a period of relative calm around the facility that has been the site of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.
The fighting has raised the specter of a nuclear catastrophe ever since Russian troops occupied the plant during the early days of the war.
In renewed shelling both close to and at the site, IAEA experts at the Zaporizhzhia facility reported hearing more than a dozen blasts Sunday. Later in the day, the IAEA said the shelling had stopped and that its experts would assess the situation Monday. “There has been damage to parts of the site, but no radiation release or loss of power,” the agency said.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid frigid weather. That has left Ukrainians without heat, power or water as snow blankets the capital, Kyiv, and other cities.
Ukraine’s state nuclear power operator said Russian forces were behind the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant. Energoatom said in a Telegram post Sunday that the targeted and damaged equipment in the facility is consistent with Kremlin’s strategy “to damage or destroy as much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as possible as” winter sets in.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, however, blamed Ukrainian forces, claiming they shelled the power plant.
Elsewhere in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian forces struck civilian infrastructure in about a dozen communities, destroying 30 homes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said Sunday.
The situation in the southern Kherson region “remains difficult,” the report said. Russian forces fired on the city of Kherson, which was recently liberated by Ukrainian forces. Shelling late Saturday struck an oil depot in Kherson, igniting a huge fire. Russian troops also shelled people lining up to get bread in the Kherson regional town of Bilozerka, wounding five, the report said.