KYIV, Ukraine
A Russian missile blasted a crater close to a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Monday, damaging nearby industrial equipment but not hitting its three reactors. Ukrainian authorities denounced the move as an act of “nuclear terrorism.”
The missile struck within 300
meters (328 yards) of the reactors at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant
near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in Mykolaiv province, leaving a hole 2 meters
(6 1/2 feet) deep and 4 meters (13 feet) wide, according to Ukrainian nuclear
operator Energoatom.
The reactors were operating
normally and no employees were injured, it said. But the proximity of the
strike renewed fears that Russia’s
nearly 7-month-long war in Ukraine might produce a radiation disaster.
This nuclear power station is
Ukraine’s second-largest after the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which
has repeatedly
come under fire.
Following recent
battlefield setbacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened last week
to step up Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Throughout the war,
Russia has targeted Ukraine’s electricity generation and transmission
equipment, causing blackouts and endangering the safety systems of the
country’s nuclear power plants.
The industrial complex that
includes the South Ukraine plant sits along the Southern Bug River about 300
kilometers (190 miles) south of the capital, Kyiv. The attack caused the
temporary shutdown of a nearby hydroelectric power plant and shattered more
than 100 windows at the complex, Ukrainian authorities said. The U.N.’s
International Atomic Energy Agency said three power lines were knocked offline
but later reconnected.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry
released a black-and-white video showing two large fireballs erupting one after
the other in the dark, followed by incandescent showers of sparks, at 19
minutes after midnight. The ministry and Energoatom called the strike “nuclear
terrorism.”
The Russian Defense Ministry
did not immediately comment on the attack.
Russian forces have occupied
the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, since early after the
invasion. Shelling has cut off the plant’s transmission lines, forcing
operators to shut
down its six reactors to avoid a radiation disaster. Russia and
Ukraine have traded blame for the strikes.
The IAEA, which has stationed
monitors at the Zaporizhzhia plant, said a main transmission line was reconnected Friday,
providing the electricity it needs to cool its reactors.
But the mayor of Enerhodar,
where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located, reported more Russian shelling Monday
in the city’s industrial zone.
While warning Friday of a
possible ramp-up of strikes, Putin claimed his forces had so far acted with
restraint but warned “if the situation develops this way, our response will be
more serious.”
“Just recently, the Russian
armed forces have delivered a couple of impactful strikes,” he said. ”Let’s
consider those as warning strikes.”
The latest Russian shelling
killed at least eight civilians and wounded 22, Ukraine’s presidential office
said Monday. The governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region, now largely back
in Ukrainian hands, said Russian shelling killed four medical workers trying to
evacuate patients from a psychiatric hospital and wounded two patients.
The mayor of the
Russian-occupied eastern city of Donetsk, meanwhile, said Ukrainian shelling
had killed 13 civilians and wounded eight there.
Patricia Lewis, the
international security research director at the Chatham House think-tank in
London, 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.
“It’s a very, very dangerous
and illegal act to be targeting a nuclear station,” Lewis told The Associated
Press. “Only the generals will know the intent, but there’s clearly a pattern.”
“What they seem to be doing
each time is to try to cut off the power to the reactor,” she said. “It’s a
very clumsy way to do it, because how accurate are these missiles?”
Power is needed to run pumps
that circulate cooling water to the reactors, preventing overheating and — in a
worst-case scenario — a radiation-spewing nuclear fuel meltdown.
Other recent Russian strikes
on Ukrainian infrastructure have targeted power plants in the north and a dam
in the south. They came in response to a sweeping Ukrainian counterattack 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.”
The Ukrainian successes in
Kharkiv — 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. The
Kremlin’s nationalist critics have questioned why Moscow has failed to plunge
Ukraine into darkness yet by hitting all of its major nuclear power plants.
In other developments:
— A governor said Ukraine had
recaptured the village of Bilogorivka in the Russian-occupied eastern region of
Luhansk. Russia didn’t acknowledge the claim.
— The Russian-installed
leaders of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson regions reiterated calls
Monday for referendums to be held to tie their areas formally to Russia. These
officials have discussed such plans before but the referendums have been
repeatedly delayed, possibly because of insufficient popular support.
— The Supreme Court in the
Russian-occupied region of Luhansk convicted a former interpreter for the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and another person whose
duties were not specified of high treason Monday. Both were sentenced to 13
years in prison.
—The Baltic nations of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania closed
their borders Monday to most Russian citizens in response to domestic
support in Russia for the war in Ukraine. Poland will join the ban on Sept. 26.
— Mega-pop star Alla Pugacheva
became the most prominent Russian
celebrity to criticize the war, describing Russia in an
Instagram post Sunday as “a pariah” and saying its soldiers were dying
for “illusory goals.” Valery Fadeyev, the head of the Russian president’s Human
Rights Council, accused Pugacheva of insincerely citing humanitarian concerns
to justify her criticism and predicted that popular artists like her would enjoy
less public influence after the war.
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