A chilling nuclear scare: Biggest atomic plant in Europe attacked

The Ukrainian state nuclear firm said that three Ukrainian troops were killed and two wounded in the attack

Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in what Washington called a reckless assault that risked catastrophe, although a blaze in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.

Russia’s defence ministry, on its part, blamed the attack at the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Ukrainian saboteurs, calling it a “monstrous provocation”. The United Nations Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting late Friday night over the attack on the nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

Combat raged elsewhere in Ukraine as Russian forces surrounded and bombarded several cities in the second week of the assault launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A presidential adviser said an advance had been halted on the southern city of Mykolayiv after local authorities said Russian troops had entered it. If captured, the city of 500,000 people would be the biggest yet to fall.

The capital Kyiv, in the path of a Russian armoured column that has been stalled on a road for days, came under renewed attack, with air raid sirens blaring in the morning and explosions audible from the city centre.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi points on a map of the power plant during a news conference in Vienna Photo: Reuters

The US Embassy in Ukraine called the Russian assault on the Zaporizhzhia plant a “war crime”. Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said it showed how reckless the Russian invasion has been.

Video verified by Reuters showed one building aflame and a volley of incoming shells before a large incandescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since February 24, when Putin ordered the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

Although the nuclear plant was later said to be safe and the fire out, officials worried about the precarious circumstances. The Ukrainian state nuclear company said that three Ukrainian troops were killed and two wounded in the attack at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Raphael Grossi paid homage to the plant’s Ukrainian staff: “to their bravery, to their courage, to their resilience because they are doing this in very difficult circumstances.”

The plant was undamaged from what he believed was a Russian projectile, Grossi said. Only one of its six reactors was working, at around 60 per cent of capacity.

Russia’s defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. 

Nato won’t police no-fly zone over Ukraine

Nato countries refused to police a no-fly zone over Ukraine, warning that such a move could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear power Russia, the organisation's top civilian official said.

Speaking after chairing a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged the suffering of the Ukrainian people, as Russia ramps up its use of heavy firepower, shelling cities and other sites, forcing more than a million people out of the country.

“What is taking place now in Ukraine is horrific. It's painful and we see human suffering, we see destruction at a scale we haven't seen in Europe since the Second World War,” he said.

'Europeans wake up'

"Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians 'Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine'," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address. In another address, he called on Russians to protest.

Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged cities, pounding them with artillery and air strikes.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the latest Western leader to phone Putin and demand he call off the war.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Russia was only increasing its strikes on civilians: "It is clear to see that this war of aggression by Putin is targeting the civilian population with the most brutal rigor."

Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbour and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer a country of 44 million people.

In Kyiv's Borshchahivka neighbourhood, the twisted engine of a cruise missile lay in the street where it had apparently been downed overnight by Ukrainian air defences. Residents were furious but also proud of the successful defence of the city of 3 million, which Russia had hoped to capture within days.