The country’s energy agency has warned that a nuclear power plant currently controlled by Vladimir Putin’s troops is at risk of a “hydrogen leak and release of radioactive substances”. Energoatom, a state agency that manages all four of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, revealed that two power plants in Zaporizhzhia have been reconnected to the country’s grid. Wednesday’s bombing narrowly missed the factory (Reuters/The Independent) The agency wrote on its website: “At the same time, due to the presence of the Russian military, its weapons, equipment and explosives at the power plant, there are serious risks to the safe operation of the ZNPP. As a result of periodic bombings, the infrastructure of the power plant has been damaged, there are risks of hydrogen leakage and release of radioactive substances, and the risk of fire is high. Moscow and Kyiv traded fresh accusations on Saturday over shelling around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which has become the focus of international concern that fighting in the region could spell disaster. Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, has been controlled by Russian forces since early March. Ukrainian personnel continue to operate it, and in recent weeks the two sides have traded blame for shelling near the plant. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that the situation in Zaporizhzhia remained “very dangerous” after two of its six reactors were reconnected to the grid after the bombing caused the nuclear plant to go offline for the first time in its history. “Let me emphasize that the situation remains very dangerous and dangerous,” President Zelensky said in his regular afternoon address, praising Ukrainian experts working to “prevent the worst-case scenario.” “Any repeat of yesterday’s events, meaning any disconnection of the plant from the grid, any action by Russia that could cause the reactors to be disconnected, would once again bring the plant one step away from disaster,” he said. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe (AP) Energoatom said on Friday night that both of the plant’s reactors had been reconnected to the grid and were supplying electricity again after being completely disconnected on Thursday. Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February, took control of the nuclear plant in March, although it is still operated by Ukrainian technicians working for Energoatom. The Russian ministry, in its daily briefing, also said it destroyed a large ammunition depot in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region containing US-made Himars missile systems and shells for M777 howitzers. The Russian Air Force shot down a MiG-29 in the eastern Donetsk region, the ministry said, and destroyed six more missile and artillery depots in the Donetsk, Mykolayiv and Kherson regions.
