KIEV —
The risk of disaster at
Europe’s largest nuclear plant is “increasing every
day”, the mayor of the city where it is located told AFP on Sunday, after
Ukraine and Russia exchanged blame for fresh shelling around the facility.
اضافة اعلان
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.
“What is
happening there is outright nuclear terrorism, and it can end unpredictably at
any moment,” said Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of Energodar city where the plant is
based.
“The risks are
increasing every day,” he told AFP by telephone from the Ukrainian-controlled
city of Zaporizhzhia.
He said 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 added.
‘Blackmail’
During his televised address on Saturday, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of nuclear “blackmail” and using the plant to
“intimidate people in an extremely cynical way”.
He added Russian
troops were “hiding” behind the plant to stage bombings on the
Ukrainian-controlled towns of Nikopol and Marganets.
But 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 may 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.
The
UN Security Council held an emergency meeting over 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.
Ukraine said the
first strikes on August 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.
Backed by Western
allies, Ukraine has called for a demilitarized zone around the plant and
demanded the withdrawal of
Russian forces.
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