In southern Ukraine on Monday a Russian missile blasted a crater close to a nuclear power plant, hitting its three reactors but not damaging nearby industrial equipment. As an act of “nuclear terrorism” Ukrainian authorities denounced the move.
The missile struck at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in Mykolaiv province within 300 meters (328 yards) of the reactors, leaving a hole 4 meters (13 feet) wide and 2 meters (6 1/2 feet) deep, according to Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom.
It said, no employees were injured and the reactors were operating. Ukraine might produce a radiation disaster but the proximity of the strike renewed fears that Russia’s nearly 7-month-long war.
After the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant this nuclear power station is Ukraine’s second-largest, which has repeatedly come under fire.
Vladimir Putin, Russian President, threatened last week to step up Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, following recent battlefield setbacks.
Throughout the war, causing blackouts and endangering the safety systems of the country’s nuclear power plants, Russia has targeted Ukraine’s electricity generation and transmission equipment.
Along the Southern Bug River about 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of the capital, Kyiv the industrial complex that includes the South Ukraine plant sits.
Nearby a hydroelectric power plant and shattered more than 100 windows at the complex the attack caused the temporary shutdown, Ukrainian authorities said. Three power lines were knocked offline but later reconnected, the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency said.
After midnight followed by incandescent showers of sparks, at 19 minutes Ukraine’s Defence Ministry released a black-and-white video showing two large fireballs erupting one after the other in the dark. The strike “nuclear terrorism” called the ministry and Energoatom.
Immediatley the Russian Defence Ministry did not comment on the attack. Europe’s largest, since early after the invasion, Russian forces have occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
To shut down its six reactors to avoid a radiation disaster Shelling has cut off the plant’s transmission lines, forcing operators. For the strikes Russia and Ukraine have traded blame.
At the Zaporizhzhia plant the IAEA, which has stationed monitors, said a main transmission line was reconnected Friday, providing the electricity it needs to cool its reactors.
In the city’s industrial zone, but the mayor of Enerhodar where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located, reported more Russian shelling Monday.
“If the situation develops this way, our response will be more serious”, Putin claimed his forces had so far acted with restraint but warned while warning Friday of a possible ramp-up of strikes.
“He said that recently the Russian armed forces have delivered a couple of impactful strikes”. ”Let’s consider those as warning strikes.”
Ukraine’s presidential office said Monday that the latest Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians and wounded 22.
Russian shelling killed four medical workers trying to evacuate patients from a psychiatric hospital and wounded two patients, the governor of the north-eastern Kharkiv region, now largely back in Ukrainian hands, said.
In the eastern city of Donetsk the mayor of the Russian-occupied, meanwhile, said Ukrainian shelling had killed 13 civilians and wounded eight there.
At the Chatham House think-tank in London, The international security research director Patricia Lewis, said attacks at the Zaporizhzhia plant and Monday’s strike on the South Ukraine plant indicated that the Russian military was attempting to knock Ukrainian nuclear plants offline before winter.
Lewis told The Associated Press that “It’s a very, very dangerous and illegal act to be targeting a nuclear station”. “The intent only the generals will know, but there’s clearly a pattern.”
“To try to cut off the power to the reactor what they seem to be doing each time is,” she said. “To do it it’s a very clumsy way, because how accurate are these missiles?”
To the reactors power is needed to run pumps that circulate cooling water, preventing overheating and in a worst-case scenario a radiation-spewing nuclear fuel meltdown.
Ukrainian infrastructure has targeted power plants in the north and a dam in the south other recent Russian strikes on. In response to a sweeping Ukrainian counterattack they came in the country’s east that reclaimed Russia-occupied territory in the Kharkiv region.
Analysts have noted that beyond recapturing territory, challenges remain in holding it. In a video address Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said cryptically of that effort, “I cannot reveal all the details, but thanks to the Security Service of Ukraine, we are now confident that the occupiers will not have any foothold on Ukrainian soil.”
In Kharkiv the Ukrainian successes, Russia’s biggest defeat since its forces were repelled from around Kyiv in the invasion’s opening stage, have fueled rare public criticism in Russia and added to the military and diplomatic pressure on Putin.
By hitting all of its major nuclear power plants the Kremlin’s nationalist critics have questioned why Moscow has failed to plunge Ukraine into darkness.
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