The risk of disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear plant is “increasing every day,” the mayor of the city where it is located said on Sunday, after Ukraine and Russia exchanged blame for fresh shelling around the facility.
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.
The facility has come under fire repeatedly in the past week, raising the specter of a nuclear catastrophe.
Photo: AP
“What is happening there is outright nuclear terrorism, and it can end unpredictably at any moment,” said Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of Energodar, where the plant is based.
“The risks are increasing every day,” said, adding that there was mortar shelling on the plant “every day and night.”
“The situation is hazardous, and what causes the most concern is that there is no de-escalation process,” he said.
During his televised address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of nuclear “blackmail” and using the plant to “intimidate people in an extremely cynical way.”
He added that Russian troops were “hiding” behind the plant to stage bombings on the Ukrainian-controlled towns of Nikopol and Marganets.
However, pro-Moscow officials in the occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia blamed the shelling on Ukrainian forces.
Missiles fell “in the areas located on the banks of the Dnipro River and in the plant,” said Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Moscow-installed administration, without reporting any casualties or damage.
The river divides the areas occupied by Russia and those under Ukraine’s control.
Orlov said over the past 24 hours, Energodar — which he left at the end of April — was shelled for the first time leading to a dramatic increase in those hoping to evacuate.
Amid safety fears, he warned that in the “near future” there might not be enough personnel to man the station.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over several rounds of shelling on the plant this month, with the strikes raising fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
In the village of Vyshchetarasivka, on the opposite bank of the Dnipro to the plant, resident Viktor Shabanin said the latest developments had left people “nervous.”
“Often the wind blows in our direction. So the radiation will go immediately to us, and the radiation will go into the water,” he said.
Agence France-Presse correspondents on the ground heard air raid sirens and distant strikes on Sunday, but reported no fresh fighting around the facility.
The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting regarding the situation on Thursday and warned of a “grave” crisis unfolding in Zaporizhzhia.
The alarm over Zaporizhzhia has revived painful memories of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — the world’s worst nuclear accident — that struck Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, and spread radioactive dust and ash across Europe.
Anastasiya Rudenko said that her late husband, who worked to decontaminate the Chernobyl disaster zone, died of bladder cancer in 2014 due to radiation.
“We could have the same fate as the people of Chernobyl,” she said. “There’s nothing good in what’s going on, and we don’t know how it will end.”
Ukraine said the first strikes on Aug. 5 hit a high-voltage power cable and forced one of the reactors to stop working.
Then strikes on Thursday damaged a pumping station and radiation sensors.
Ukraine has called for a demilitarized zone around the plant and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Russian forces trying to press their offensive near the Dnipro in the southern Kherson region are under pressure after strategically important bridges were damaged, a Ukrainian politician said on Sunday.
A major consequence of the war has been soaring food prices after a Russian naval blockade and Kyiv’s mining of its ports prevented Ukrainian grain from being sold on global markets.
A landmark deal last month between Russia and Ukraine brokered by Turkey and the UN created safe corridors to allow key grain exports to resume.
Kyiv on Sunday said the first UN-chartered vessel transporting grain from Ukraine to relieve the global food crisis was loaded with 23,000 tonnes of wheat and is ready to depart.
Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the MV Brave Commander, currently in the Black Sea port of Pivdennyi, is about to head to Africa with a 23,000-tonne cargo of wheat.
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