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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Russia has started a fire on the grounds of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest such facility in Europe.
It comes as the war between the two countries enters a new phase, with Ukraine occupying Russian territory for the first time last week as part of its retaliation against Russia’s full-scale invasion, which is now in its third year.
Russia captured the plant, which is in Ukrainian territory, shortly after invading Ukraine in 2022. Its six nuclear reactors are in cold shutdown and no nuclear activity was recorded on Sunday, but the overall risk of nuclear meltdown remains elevated.
“Currently, radiation levels are within norm,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X which included a video. “As long as the Russian terrorists maintain control over the nuclear plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal.”
“Since the first day of its seizure, Russia has been using the Zaporizhzhia NPP only to blackmail Ukraine, all of Europe, and the world,” he added.
There is widespread concern about the safety of the plant, which is located on the southern bank of the Dnipro River around 50 kilometres southwest of Zaporizhzhia.
“Two years of war are weighing heavily on nuclear safety at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in April, after Russia attacked the facility for the first time during the war.
“These reckless attacks must cease immediately.”
The IAEA on Sunday directed POLITICO to an X post in which it noted “strong dark smoke” coming from Zaporizhzhia plant on Sunday. It said it had been told there was a drone attack on one of the site’s cooling towers, adding: “No impact has been reported for nuclear safety.”
In July, the UN adopted a resolution demanding Russia immediately return control of the facility to Ukraine.
Since then, Ukraine’s begun a counteroffensive into Russian territory in Kursk, which is the site of the largest nuclear power plant in the world.
The IAEA noted that development and appealed “to all sides to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences.”
Grossi warned in April that the Russia-Ukraine war — which is the first to be fought so close to facilities of a major nuclear power program — has brought the prospect of a major nuclear accident dangerously close.
The world’s worst nuclear accident occurred in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986. Soviet authorities initially denied the scale of the disaster. Its effects are still felt to this day.
POLITICO has contacted Russian authorities for comment.
