The Ukraine-24 TV channel reported, quoting the director of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, that “radiological safety at the plant was secured,” while the Ukrainian authorities reported that “the nuclear safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant is guaranteed.”
Local Ukrainian media reported that firefighters managed to reach the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, where the fire broke out in an administrative building designated for training.
She indicated that the third power unit in the station was closed, and that only the fourth power unit was operating, stressing that the safety conditions from radiation and fire at the nuclear power plant were within normal limits.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has warned of a “grave danger” if a nuclear reactor at the Zaporozhye plant is bombed, and called for a halt to the use of force near the Zaporizhia nuclear plant in Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, discussed “the Russian bombing of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant,” according to a US official.
A spokesman for the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was quoted by the RIA news agency as saying that radiation levels had not changed at the plant, the vicinity of which witnessed a fire after an attack by Russian forces.
Earlier on Friday night, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter that a fire had broken out at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, and that the Russian military was bombing it from all sides.
“The Russian army is firing from all sides at the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” Kuleba said in a tweet on Twitter.
“The fire has already caught on. If it exploded, it would be ten times bigger than Chernobyl! The Russians should stop firing immediately, allow the arrival of the firefighters and establish a security zone,” he added.
Kuleba refers to the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, an accident considered the worst nuclear disaster in history.