LAST UPDATE | 14 Aug 2022
THE RISK OF disaster at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant occupied by Russian troops is “increasing every day”, the mayor of the city where the facility is located has said.
“What is happening there is outright nuclear terrorism, and it can end unpredictably at any moment,” Energodar mayor Dmytro Orlov told AFP. “The risks are increasing every day.”
Kyiv and Moscow have exchanged blame for fresh shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear facility, which is in Russia’s control and has come under fire repeatedly in the past week.
The Zaporizhzhia plant in southeastern Ukraine has been occupied by Russian forces since March, and Kyiv has accused Moscow of basing hundreds of soldiers and storing arms there.
During his televised address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of nuclear “blackmail” and using the plant to “intimidate people in an extremely cynical way.”
“They arrange constant provocations with shelling of the territory of the nuclear power plant and try to bring their additional forces in this direction to blackmail our state and the entire free world even more,” Zelenskyy said.
He added that Russian forces were “hiding” behind the plant to stage bombings on the Ukrainian-controlled towns of Nikopol and Marganets.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom warned residents in the city of Energodar, where the plant is located, to stay off the streets as much as possible to avoid ongoing Russian shelling.
But pro-Moscow officials in the occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia blamed the shelling on Ukrainian forces.
“Energodar and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are again under fire by (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky’s militants,” said Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Moscow-installed administration.
The missiles fell “in the areas located on the banks of the Dnipro river and in the plant”, he said, without reporting any casualties or damage.
The river divides the areas occupied by Russia and those under Ukraine’s control.
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