CNN
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Russian forces set fire to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Telegram post on Sunday.
Zelensky released a video showing a large cloud of smoke coming from one of the towers on the nuclear power plant site. He said radiation levels were normal, but accused Russia of using the plant “to blackmail Ukraine and all of Europe and the world.”
“We are waiting for the world’s reaction, we are waiting for the IAEA’s reaction,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “Russia must take responsibility for this.”
Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the Ukrainian-controlled military administration in the Nikopol district, which borders the power plant, said there was unofficial information that Russian forces had set fire to a large number of car tires in the cooling towers.
He described this as “a provocation or an attempt to create panic” and assured that operations at the plant “are running as normally as possible under the conditions of the occupation”.
Russia, in turn, accused Ukraine of setting the fire on the power plant site.
The Russian-appointed official who controls the occupied parts of Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said the fire occurred “as a result of the shelling of the city of Enerhodar by the Ukrainian armed forces.” Balitsky also said there was no radiation threat to the nuclear power plant or the city of Enerhodar.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-installed government in Zaporizhia, said Kiev forces launched an attack drone from Ukrainian territory to attack the nuclear power plant, calling it a “targeted and deliberate strike.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of “nuclear terror” after the attack and called on the IAEA to respond.
The Russian-appointed communications director of the nuclear power plant, Yevgenia Yashina, told state media outlet TASS that there were no casualties after the attack. However, the plant was “seriously damaged for the first time,” she said. TASS reported, citing the Emergency Situations Ministry, that “the non-functioning cooling tower No. 1 was damaged and plastic condensate separators caught fire after the Ukrainian drone attack.”
The fire “did not affect the plant’s operations in any way” and employees of Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry are working to extinguish it, the plant’s Russia-backed Telegram page said.
The IAEA issued a statement on X on Sunday following the incident.
“IAEA experts observed heavy, dark smoke coming from the northern area of the ZNPP nuclear power plant after several explosions were heard in the evening. The team was informed by ZNPP of a suspected drone attack on one of the cooling towers at the site. No impact on nuclear safety was reported,” it said.
The incident occurred after Zelensky confirmed that Kiev’s troops were fighting in Russia. Just a few days earlier, Ukraine had unexpectedly crossed the border into the Russian region of Kursk, causing great embarrassment for the Kremlin.
Ukraine has repeatedly attacked the border region around Belgorod with airstrikes and pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups have carried out limited cross-border attacks. However, Operation Kursk was the first time that regular Ukrainian units and special forces entered Russian territory.
“Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor,” Zelensky said on Saturday, thanking “every unit” of the Ukrainian armed forces for making it possible to “extend the war to the territory of the aggressor.”
Moscow is desperately trying to contain the attack. Russian authorities have launched a comprehensive anti-terrorist operation in Kursk and two other border regions and evacuated tens of thousands of people.
The attack on Kursk is now in its sixth day and represents a significant development in the conflict that has been going on for over two years.
