Russia says Ukraine hit two facilities at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

MOSCOW, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones attacked two facilities at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine overnight on Monday, but there is no threat to nuclear safety, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation said.

Alexei Likhachev, director general of Rosatom, said a driver delivering food for plant employees was killed in the drone attack.

According to Likhachev, a laboratory building and a radioactive waste processing plant were the targets. Ukraine has not commented on the incident.

On Saturday, the plant’s management said Ukrainian shelling over recent weeks had damaged external power supply equipment at the plant, with electricity currently being provided by emergency diesel generators.

The plant produces no electricity but needs power supplied by two external links to keep nuclear fuel cool.

Russia seized the plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, in the first weeks of the war that began with Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbour.

Moscow and Kyiv have since regularly accused each other of military action that compromises nuclear safety.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, has repeatedly acted to secure a ceasefire around the plant to have repairs carried out to lines connecting the plant to the main power grid.

UN monitors are stationed at the Zaporizhzhia plant and three others operating in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, writing on her ministry’s website, accused the West of enabling Ukrainian attacks by failing to condemn them publicly.

“Kyiv’s intensification of shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant has been made possible by the lack of an appropriate response to such actions from Western countries, which are effectively facilitating new attacks,” Zakharova wrote.

“Such an attitude towards strikes by the Ukrainian military demonstrates the true value of statements by representatives of these countries about nuclear and physical nuclear safety at various international forums.”

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Vladimir Soldatkin, Ron Popeski and Jamie Freed)

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