The Russian army attacked the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine, including the provincial capital, where Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is located, Thursday night, leaving thousands of people without electricity.
According to the Ukrainian news agency Unian, the Russian offensive occurred early last night, hours after Russia launched dozens of missiles against the 10 regions of the country, causing more than a dozen deaths and affecting the electricity supply to the nuclear power plant. plant for use of generators.
“The racist abomination [russa] He attacked our city again. The result is damage to critical infrastructure facilities,” Zaporizhia city secretary Anatoly Kurtev was quoted as saying by the local Unian news agency.
After the attack, Kurtev said, “a fire broke out in the urban area which, according to preliminary information, reached two educational establishments.”
According to Anatoly Kurtev, “around 20,000 consumers were left without power as a result of the attack.”
“Heating and water supply also experienced failures in some areas of the city,” it added.
“All relevant emergency services immediately started working to resolve the issues. At this point, electricity, heating and water supplies in Zaporizhia are partially restored. Work continues,” the municipality official said.
The situation in the city has not yet been monitored by independent sources.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said late Thursday that the facility was connected to an external supply system after being dependent on diesel generators for 11 hours.
The situation “demonstrates once again the fragility and danger” to which the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is exposed, Rafael Grossi said.
This Friday, Grossi recalled that this is the sixth time that Zaporizhia has faced power cuts since the start of the new invasion of Russia that began in February last year.
Grossi also said IAEA inspectors in central Zaporizhia have again “heard heavy shelling” indicating, he said, “increased military activity in the region.”
The IAEA has been calling for the establishment of a safety zone in the area of the plant since last year to avoid the risk of a “nuclear disaster.”
Zaporizhia, the world’s third-largest nuclear power plant, was occupied by the Russian army last year and has been the target of power outages on the Ukrainian grid due to shelling in the area.
kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of responsibility for the bombing in the area.
Source: TSF
