Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his army is targeting Russian soldiers occupying a nuclear plant in the south of the country. Russia and Ukraine have traded accusations over several recent bombing incidents at the Zaporizhzhia facility, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russian troops occupied the station early in the war. “Every Russian soldier who either shoots at the plant or shoots using the plant as cover must understand that he is becoming a special target for our intelligence agents, for our special services, for our military,” Zelensky said in a speech in the evening Saturday’s. . Zelensky, who did not elaborate, repeated accusations that Russia was using the plant as a form of nuclear blackmail. Ukraine’s defense intelligence service earlier warned of new Russian “provocations” around the plant, while the exiled mayor of the town where the plant is located said it had come under renewed Russian shelling.
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Earlier, local official Vladimir Rogov wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces are shelling the factory. “Energodar and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are under fire again [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky fighters,” Rogov said, referring to the city where the plant is located. Missiles fell “in the areas located on the banks of the Dnipro River and at the factory,” he said, without citing casualties or damage. The adviser to the Ukrainian president Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of “hitting the part of the nuclear power plant where the energy that supplies the south of Ukraine is produced.” “The goal is to disconnect us from (the plant) and blame the Ukrainian military for it,” Podolyak tweeted. The Defense Intelligence Service said Russian troops had parked a Pion self-propelled howitzer outside the nearby town and placed a Ukrainian flag on it. The agency also said Thursday’s attacks on the factory grounds, which Ukraine says destroyed water pumping infrastructure and a fire station, were carried out from the Russian-held village of Vodiane, about seven kilometers (4.35 miles) east of the factory. . The areas occupied by Russia and those under the control of Ukraine are separated by the Dnieper River. The UN nuclear chief warned on Thursday that “very worrying” military activity at the plant could lead to dangerous consequences for the region and called for an end to attacks on the facility. Rafael Grossi urged Russia and Ukraine, which blame each other for the attacks on the plant, to immediately allow nuclear experts to assess the damage and assess safety and security at the sprawling nuclear complex where the situation has “deteriorated very quickly”. Ukraine, backed by Western allies, has called for a demilitarized zone around the plant and for the withdrawal of Russian forces.
