Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns of Russian threat to ‘attack’ Ukraine nuclear power plant

Receive free War in Ukraine updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest War in Ukraine news every morning.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russia might be preparing to blow up part of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest such facility in Europe, as Kyiv’s military reported incremental gains in its southern and eastern counteroffensive.

“The Russian military has placed objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Zelenskyy said in his night-time address on Tuesday, citing Ukrainian intelligence agencies. “Perhaps to simulate an attack on the plant. Perhaps they have some other scenario.”

Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant soon after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. Rockets and mortar rounds have struck near the plant and gunfights have broken out around it.

“The world sees . . . that the only source of danger to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is Russia and no one else,” Zelenskyy added.

Zelenskyy said Russia may be emboldened to carry out such an attack because there had been “no timely and large-scale response” from western partners to Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and dam last month. The attack drained a reservoir and flooded a swath of southern Ukraine.

The warning prompted Ukraine’s health ministry to notify residents living near the plant to gather medical supplies and personal items and prepare for “a possible evacuation” at a moment’s notice.

International Atomic Energy Agency experts present at the site have not observed any indications of mines or explosives during recent inspections that have included checks around the perimeter of the large cooling pond, IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday

IAEA experts have requested additional access that is necessary to confirm the absence of mines or explosives, Grossi said, adding that this would include the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4, parts of the turbine halls and some parts of the plant’s cooling system.

Following Zelenskyy’s remarks, some nuclear experts said that even if the plant were rigged with explosives, differences in reactor infrastructure meant they would likely not be able to cause the scale of damage seen at Chernobyl, site of the 1986 nuclear disaster.

“The [plant’s] six reactors are not at all like the Chernobyl reactor and cannot have the same kind of accident,” wrote Cheryl Rofer, an American chemist and nuclear researcher. “Chernobyl had a graphite moderator, and the building it was in was not the heavily reinforced concrete of the reactors at ZNPP. The ZNPP reactors have hard oxide fuel encased in metal, and are inside a stainless steel vessel. Chernobyl had no such vessel.”

Mark Wenman, a nuclear materials specialist at Imperial College London, said Zaporizhzhia’s reactor containment buildings “are very robust . . . able to withstand earthquakes and aircraft impact strikes”. With all the reactors now shut down, “overall the risks are still very small”, he added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday said there was a risk of the plant being damaged by Kyiv, adding that Russia was working to counter that threat.

“The situation is pretty tense, because the threat of sabotage, which could have catastrophic consequences, is very real,” Peskov said, providing no evidence for his claim. “All measures are being taken to counter such a threat.”

Telegram channels linked to Russian military bloggers and propagandists have been spreading rumours of an imminent Ukrainian “false flag” attack on Zaporizhzhia that would be blamed on Russia, without providing evidence for their claim.

Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of Nikopol’s district military administration, said on Wednesday that the plant was operating normally and there had been no suspicious movements by Russian forces overnight. Nikopol is on the other side of the Dnipro river from Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located.

Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, Energoatom, reported that the water level in the plant’s cooling pond remained stable, despite the reservoir on which it sits being emptied after the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant was destroyed.

Ukraine’s military continues to make incremental gains in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, as well as around Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, retaking some of the ground captured in May by the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, said on Tuesday that the past few days had been “particularly fruitful” for Ukrainian forces on the frontline, without providing specific details. Ukraine’s military said it had destroyed a formation of Russian forces in Makiivka, 75km south of Bakhmut.

But Ukraine’s troops have also faced setbacks, particularly on the southern battlefield, where Russian minefields have impeded the progress of counteroffensive forces.

Kyiv also warned that all of Ukraine remained under threat from Russian missile attacks. “The probability of launching missile and air strikes on the entire territory of Ukraine remains high,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said on Wednesday.

It noted that a Russian missile strike on Tuesday on the town of Pervomaiskyi, in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, had injured 43 civilians, including 12 children.

Russian authorities reported that towns in the border regions of Kursk and Belgorod came under drone and rocket fire on Wednesday, with some buildings damaged as a result and one person injured.