Zelensky warns of Russian threat to ‘attack’ Ukraine’s nuclear power plant

Get free updates from the war in Ukraine

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding war in ukraine News every morning.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia could be preparing to blow up part of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest facility in Europe, as Kiev’s military reported increasing its southern and eastern counterattacks .

“The Russian military has placed explosive-like objects on the roofs of several power units at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant,” Zelensky said in his nightly address on Tuesday, citing Ukrainian intelligence agencies. “Probably to simulate an attack on the plant. Maybe they have some other scenario.”

The Russian military took control of the Zaporizhia plant shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. There have been rocket and mortar attacks near the plant and firing has started around it.

“The world watches. , , “The only source of danger for the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is Russia and no one else,” Zelensky said.

On Telegram, channels affiliated with Russian military bloggers and propagandists spread rumors of an imminent Ukrainian “false flag” attack on Zaporizhia, which would be blamed on Russia, without providing evidence for their claims.

Zelensky said Russia could be encouraged to carry out such an attack because of “no timely and large-scale response” from Western partners to Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and dam last month. Had happened. The attack destroyed a reservoir and flooded a large part of southern Ukraine.

“It could provoke the Kremlin to commit new evils,” Zelensky said. “Preventing it is everyone’s responsibility in the world, no one can stay away from it, because radiation affects everyone.”

The warning prompted Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to inform residents living near the Zaporizhia plant to collect medical supplies and personal belongings and to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

It states, “In the event of an explosion at the (power plant), residents of the potential radiation accident zone should be prepared for a possible evacuation.”

The head of Nikopol’s district military administration, Yevgen Yevtushenko, said on Wednesday that the plant was operating normally and that there had been no suspicious movements by Russian forces overnight. Nikopol is on the other side of the Dnieper River from Enrhodar, where the Zaporizhia plant is located.

Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, Energoatom, reported that the water level in the plant’s cooling pond remained stable, despite the reservoir being empty following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam and hydroelectric power plant.

Ukraine’s military has continued to make steady advances around Bakhmut in the southern Zaporizhia region as well as in the eastern Donetsk region, and has retaken some of the ground captured by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in May.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said on Tuesday that the past few days had been “particularly fruitful” for Ukrainian forces on the front line, without giving specifics. Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed a Russian army unit in Makiivka, 75 km south of Bakhmut.

But Ukrainian troops have also suffered setbacks, particularly on the southern battlefield, where Russian landmines have impeded the progress of counterattack forces and caused significant casualties as well as a number of armored vehicles carrying Western supplies. has also been destroyed.

Kiev also warned that the whole of Ukraine is at risk from Russian missile attacks. “The likelihood of launching missile and air strikes on the entire territory of Ukraine remains high,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Wednesday.

It said 43 civilians, including 12 children, were wounded in a Russian missile attack on the town of Pervomaysky in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region on Tuesday.

Russian officials said the cities in the border regions of Kursk and Belgorod came under drone and rocket attacks on Wednesday, resulting in some buildings being damaged and one person injured.