Status: 04.03.2022 07:21 a.m
According to Ukrainian sources, Russian troops fired on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant during the night. A fire broke out on the premises, which has now apparently been extinguished. According to the IAEA, there should be no increased radioactive values.
According to Ukrainian sources, the Russian army attacked Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, Ukraine, and caused a fire there. According to the authorities, fire broke out in a building used for training purposes during the night, the reactor blocks were not affected.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “nuclear terrorism”. Apparently, Russia wants to “repeat the Chernobyl nuclear disaster”: “If there is an explosion, it will be the end of everything. The end of Europe,” Zelenskyy warned.
He accused the Russian army of aiming specifically at the power plant: “These are tanks equipped with thermal imaging cameras, so they know what they’re shooting at.” No other country in the world has ever shelled nuclear facilities, he said in a video message.
Ukrainian nuclear power plant is apparently being fired at with heavy artillery
Mathea Schülke, WDR, Morgenmagazin, March 4th, 2022
Fire brigade let in after hours
Video images from a live web feed showed explosions and plumes of smoke over the Zaporizhia nuclear facility. According to the fire brigade, Russian soldiers did not initially let the fire-fighting squads through to the scene of the fire. Firefighters only gained access after hours and were able to extinguish the fire.
Local officials had previously reported bombing raids on the nuclear facility, and the nuclear power plant was being fired upon with heavy artillery. A block of the power plant was hit and there was a fire in the plant, said the spokesman for the nuclear power plant, Andriy Tuz, in a video published on Telegram. Although the reactor that was hit is being renovated and is not in operation, it does contain nuclear fuel.
IAEA: No increased radioactivity
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that according to the Ukrainian government, no increased radioactivity had been measured in the vicinity of the plant, and that the staff had taken “risk minimization measures”. US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm wrote on Twitter that the plant’s reactors would be “safely shut down”.
Demand for NATO support
Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko called on NATO to intervene. In view of the attack on the nuclear power plant, “not only a professional assessment of the events is required, but real intervention with the toughest measures, including by NATO and the countries that have nuclear weapons,” Halushchenko wrote on Facebook.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called for the attacks to stop immediately. “If it explodes, it will be 10 times bigger than Chernobyl! Russians must stop firing immediately,” he wrote on Twitter.
Last week there had been fighting near the Chernobyl reactor, where the worst nuclear accident in history happened in 1986. The nuclear ruin is now controlled by Russian troops.
Johnson calls for emergency UN meeting
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of his “reckless behavior” endangering “the security of all of Europe”.
Johnson’s office said the prime minister and Zelenskyy agreed that Russia must stop the attacks immediately, allow emergency services full access to the nuclear facility and that a ceasefire is essential.
conflicting parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body.