Volodymyr Zelensky has warned of a disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant – which has six times more reactors than Chernobyl.
The Ukrainian President raised the threat of nuclear catastrophe after strikes on the Zaporizhzhia power plant last week.
Both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attacks.
The plant in southeastern Ukraine was occupied by Russia early on in the invasion, which also saw Vladimir Putin’s forces fleeing Chernobyl after a series of calamitous mishaps that reportedly left many Russian troops suffering from radiation poisoning.
Referring back to the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, President Zelensky said: ‘The world should not forget about Chernobyl and should remember that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) is the biggest in Europe.
‘The Chernobyl disaster was an explosion of one reactor. Zaporizhzhia NPP has six reactors.’
In his nightly address, the Ukrainian leader added: ‘New sanctions are necessary against the terrorist state and the whole Russian nuclear industry for creating the threat of nuclear catastrophe.’
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Kyiv called for the area to be demilitarised, adding that two employees had been wounded in recent attacks.
Meanwhile, on Russian-state controlled TV, there was another eyebrow-raising intervention, this time from the leader of pro-Kremlin Ukrainian movement Parus, Yury Kot.
Claiming it was Kyiv and the West jeopardising nuclear safety, he urged Putin to be ready to fire nuclear missiles at London and Washington.
‘We all understand very well that [Ukraine and the West] are concocting a fictional reality [over Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant],’ he told Channel One.
‘We need to tell Ukraine and its supporting countries – Britain and America foremost…and make it clear.
‘If Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is damaged and a disaster occurs, two missiles will immediately strike your decision-making centres.
‘One in Washington, the other in London.
‘Nuclear ones… And that’s it….there won’t be any more talk…’
The suggestion was immediately challenged by another contributor, Aleksey Mukhin, from the centre for political information, who pointed out that such a move would trigger a counter-strike and Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
Yesterday the Kremlin accused Ukrainian forces of firing on the power plant and warned the alleged attacks could have ‘catastrophic consequences’.
The head of the region’s Moscow-installed administration, Yevgeny Balitsky, added on social media that he had signed a decree ‘on the issue of organising a referendum on the reunification of the Zaporizhzhia region with the Russian Federation’.
The plans follow a similar move by Moscow in 2014 after it annexed the Crimean peninsula, a highly controversial vote that has not been recognised by most Western countries.
Recent fighting at the plant has prompted the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to warn of ‘the very real risk of a nuclear disaster’.
Petro Kotin, president of Ukraine’s nuclear energy company, Energoatom, claimed Russia had deployed some 500 troops and 50 pieces of hardware including tanks at Zaporizhzhia, echoing earlier claims from Kyiv that Moscow was using the site for military cover.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmygal meanwhile accused Russia of ‘nuclear terrorism,’ urging the world to ‘unite now to prevent a catastrophe’.
More than five months of fighting has taken a heavy toll on both Russian and Ukrainian forces, with tens of thousands thought to be dead.
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