Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Russian forces had lit a fire on the premises of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine and that it was visible from Kyiv-held territory.
In a statement on the Telegram app, Mr Zelenskiy said radiation indicators were normal.
A local official in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol, which looks out on to the plant, said there was unofficial information that Russian forces had set fire to a large number of automobile tires in the cooling towers. He urged residents to remain calm.
The United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear watchdog, which has a presence at the vast six-reactor facility, said its experts had seen strong, dark smoke coming from the northern area of the plant in southern Ukraine following multiple explosions.
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It said there had been no reported impact on nuclear safety at the site.
“Team was told by (the nuclear plant) of an alleged drone attack today on one of the cooling towers located at the site,” it wrote on X.
Yevhen Yevtushenko, a local Ukrainian official in Nikopol said there was “unofficial” information that Russian forces had set fire to a large number of automobile tires in the cooling towers.
The Russian management of the plant said on Sunday that rescuers were working to put out a fire near the facility’s cooling towers and that the fire had had no impact on the plant and its safety.
Evgeny Balitsky, a Russian-installed official in occupied Zaporizhzhia region, accused Ukraine of starting the fire by shelling the nearby city of Enerhodar. Mr Zelenskiy said earlier that Russian forces had lit a fire at the facility.
The six reactors at the plant located close to the front line of the war in Ukraine are not in operation but the facility relies on external power to keep its nuclear material cool and prevent a catastrophic accident.
Earlier on Sunday, Mr Zelenskiy urged allies to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory as his troops continue to hold ground gained following a surprise cross-border incursion.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops fired on Ukrainian soldiers in the western Kursk region in a bid to repel the first foreign incursion on its territory since the second World War. The ministry said on Sunday it downed four missiles and 35 drones over Kursk and neighbouring regions overnight.
Moscow said earlier it was bringing in reinforcements to help quell Ukraine’s surprise cross-border attack – the biggest assault within Russia since president Vladimir Putin ordered a supposedly quick “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 that’s well into its third year.
Officials in Kyiv have been tight-lipped about their goals, as they were during counteroffensives in 2022 and 2023. Mr Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Saturday its army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi was keeping him informed about “our actions to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” without offering more details.
He thanked his forces for creating “the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor”.
Russia struck several regions of Ukraine overnight with four North Korean ballistic missiles and 57 Shahed drones, Ukrainian air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Explosions were heard in many areas from west to east. The KN-23 missiles were fired from the Voronezh region of Russia, he said, adding that Ukraine had shot down 53 drones.
The US and South Korea have accused North Korea of sending millions of rounds of munitions and scores of ballistic missiles to Russia to aid in the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow and Pyongyang have denied despite evidence showing arms shipments taking place.
A residential building in the Brovary district east of the capital was destroyed in the overnight attack, killing a father and his four-year-old son and seriously injuring at least three others, regional authorities said.
Russian troops continue to press along the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and have also been storming positions in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Kyiv authorities said on Sunday.
Ukrainian officials have complained that delays in the arrival of promised western aid were allowing the Kremlin to make grinding progress against an army already stretched by a lack of weapons and manpower.
While Kremlin ground forces have made slow gains in recent months, Ukraine has increasingly targeted military objects and energy infrastructure – often deep into Russia – with drones and missiles.
Russian military bloggers, who earlier reported Ukrainian advancing as deep as 37km into the Kursk region, said Kyiv’s troops had made no additional breakthroughs overnight.
Fighting around the town of Sudzha, the site of a key transit point for the last remaining pipeline carrying Russian gas to Europe, helped push European natural gas prices to the highest level this year on fears of possible disruptions to supplies. Russia’s Gazprom PJSC reported flows across Ukraine within a normal range on Sunday.
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said the Kursk atomic power plant near the city of Kurchatov was operating normally, Tass reported.
Russia’s Federal Security Service announced a “counter-terrorism” regime in Kursk and the neighbouring Belgorod and Bryansk border regions on Saturday; a move that allows for restrictions on movement and communications. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said this was a response to Ukraine’s “unprecedented” attempt to destabilise the situation.
More than 76,000 residents have been evacuated from Russian border areas in the Kursk region in response to the fighting. The government declared a federal emergency in the region on Friday.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, which borders Kursk and other Russian regions, officials have been carrying out a mandatory evacuation of as many as 20,000 residents from a 10km-zone under Russian fire. – Bloomberg