Russia has reached a new low and is trying to “threaten the whole world” by bombing Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy has said.
Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of bombing the facility as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proposed a demilitarized zone at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar .
Guterres also called for both sides to halt military action around the facilities to avoid “catastrophic consequences”.
The United States supported the UN’s call for a demilitarized zone and urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the site.
Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy agency, said the Zaporizhzhia complex was hit five times on Thursday, including near where radioactive materials are stored.
Moscow-appointed officials said Ukraine bombed the plant twice, disrupting a shift change, according to Russian news agency TASS.
Reports from both parties about the circumstances of the plant have not been independently verified.
Vladimir Putin’s troops seized the town of Enerhodar in early March, and while the Zaporizhzhia plant is controlled by Russia, its Ukrainian personnel continue to run nuclear operations.
In his late-night speech on Thursday, Zelenksyy demanded Russia return the plant to Ukrainian control and said “the world should react immediately to expel the occupiers” from the territory around the facility.
He said: “Russia once again broke the bottom of the global history of terrorism.
“No one else used the nuclear power plant, so obviously to threaten the whole world and put some conditions and absolutely everyone in the world should react immediately to expel the occupiers from the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
“This is a global interest, not just a Ukrainian need.”
Read more: What are the risks of a nuclear accident in Ukraine?
Meanwhile, UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi warned that “very alarming” military activity at the plant could have dangerous consequences for the region and called for an end to the attacks.
Grossi, who is the director of the IAEA, said that the agency’s experts have assessed that there is no immediate threat to nuclear safety, but that the situation could change “at any moment”.
It also urged Russia and Ukraine to immediately allow nuclear experts access to the plant to assess damage and assess safety.
Image:
A man stands inside a crater left by a Russian missile strike in the Zaporizhzhia region
Grossi made the remarks as the UN Security Council met on Thursday to discuss the situation.
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council that accusations that Moscow is bombing the plant are “cynical and absurd”.
He added that the world is being pushed “to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe, comparable in scale to Chernobyl.”
However, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, called on the Russians to reverse course and abandon the plant.
“None of us can stop the wind if it carries radiation. But together we are able to stop a terrorist state,” he said.
separately, satellite images released on Thursday showed devastation at an airbase in Russian-annexed Crimea.
The images suggest Ukraine may have a new long-range strike capability with the potential to change the course of the war, Western military experts said.
Images from independent satellite firm Planet Labs showed three nearly identical craters where buildings at Russia’s Saki Air Base had been hit with apparent precision.
The base, on Crimea’s southwest coast, suffered extensive fire damage with at least eight destroyed warplanes clearly visible.
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Russia has denied that the planes were damaged and said the explosions at the base on Tuesday were accidental.
Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.
It comes as Mr Zelensky has told Ukrainian officials to stop talking to reporters about Kyiv’s military tactics against Russia, saying such comments were “frankly irresponsible”.