Powerful explosions have rocked the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said.
“In what appeared to be renewed shelling both close to and at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, IAEA experts at the ZNPP reported to Agency headquarters that more than a dozen blasts were heard within a short period of time in the morning local time,” the IAEA said in a statement.
Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power company, said shelling around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear site was ongoing.
“They not only shelled yesterday, they are shelling today, shelling right now. As of now, about 15 hits at nuclear power plant facilities have been recorded. Any artillery strikes on the nuclear plant put nuclear safety at risk,” Karchaa was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.
“Thank God there has been no radiation release,” Karchaa said, adding that no one was hurt.
The IAEA team could see some of the explosions from their windows, the statement added, but the damage so far has not been critical for nuclear safety and security.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has expressed concern over the renewal of hostilities around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi has expressed concern over the renewal of hostilities around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site.
“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing,” Grossi said in a statement. “Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!”
IAEA’s director general has renewed his urgent appeal to Russia and Ukraine to implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia as soon as possible.
Grossi engaged in intense consultations with both sides about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement.
Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom says the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has come under Ukrainian shelling, but no radiation leak has been detected.
Adviser Renat Karchaa said the shells had been fired near a dry nuclear waste storage facility and a building that houses recently spent nuclear fuel, Russian news agency TASS reported.
The Russian army has accused Kyiv of staging a “provocation” by shelling the territory of the Zaporizhzhia plant that is under its control in southern Ukraine.
Kyiv “does not stop its provocations aiming at creating the threat of a man-made catastrophe at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”, it said in a statement.
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