Russia on Monday mentioned that the shelling of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant posed a nuclear accident menace because it accused Kyiv of the assaults on Europe’s largest nuclear energy plant.

The considerations have been sparked after the plant — positioned in southern Ukraine, simply 500 km from Chernobyl (the positioning of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986) — was repeatedly shelled previously few days. Each the warring nations have blamed one another over the assaults on the plant.

“The plant is vulnerable to a nuclear accident,” information company Reuters quoted Alexei Likhachev, the director normal of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear company, as telling state-run information company Interfax. “We had been in negotiations with the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA) all evening,” he mentioned.

The facility plant is underneath Russian management and have become the goal of heavy shelling on Saturday and Sunday, prompting a warning from the UN nuclear watchdog which mentioned such assaults risked a serious catastrophe.

A meltdown of a reactor on the plant or a fireplace of spent nuclear gas may ship a plume of radionuclides into the air, probably spreading over a big space of Europe.

“This can’t however trigger our concern,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov informed reporters, referring to the shelling. “We name on all nations of the world to make use of their affect in order that the Ukrainian armed forces cease doing this.”

The Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA) mentioned damages to a radioactive waste and storage constructing have been reported, including that cooling pond sprinkler techniques and an electrical cable to one of many reactors had been among the many different issues harmed. Exterior energy provides weren’t affected and radiation ranges on the plant remained regular, the IAEA mentioned.

Whereas Russia mentioned Ukraine’s armed forces fired 11 giant calibre shells on the plant on Saturday and 12 on Sunday morning, Ukraine’s nuclear vitality agency Energoatom maintained the Russian army shelled the plant.

(With company inputs)