Wanting to Create Disaster for Russia, Ukraine Attacks Nuclear Power Plant

Moscow demanded the West respond, although Kyiv said it had nothing to do with the attack.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has experts at the site, said it was the first time Europe’s largest nuclear power plant had been directly targeted since November 2022 and said the attack endangered nuclear safety.

Russian troops took over the factory in 2022 shortly after their full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Both Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of risking a nuclear accident by attacking the nuclear power plant.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, said Ukraine struck the plant three times on Sunday with drones, first wounding three people near the canteen, then striking the cargo area and then the dome over the No. 6 reactor.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been the target of an unprecedented series of drone attacks, a direct threat to the safety of the power plant,” Rosatom said. “Radiation levels at the power plant and the surrounding area have not changed,” he said, as reported by Reuters.

A Ukrainian intelligence official said Kyiv had nothing to do with the attack on the station and suggested the attack was Russia’s own doing.

“Russian attacks, including copycat ones, on the territory of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants… have long been a notorious criminal practice by the invaders,” spokesman for Ukraine’s HUR Main Intelligence Directorate, Andriy Usov.

Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.