Russia The US and Ukraine accused each other on Thursday of carrying out new bombardments in the area of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia, before an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
The two countries at war reported five rocket attacks near a storage area for radioactive material at the plant, the largest in Europe, located in southern Ukraine.
(Also read: Russia summons the UN Security Council for attacks on the Zaporizhia power plant)
The operator of the Ukrainian plants, Energoaton, announced shortly after a new Russian bombardment near one of the six reactors of the plant, which caused “a large smoke” and damaged “several radiation sensors”.
The Ukrainian plant in Zaporizhia came under the control of Russian troops on March 4, shortly after the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Ukraine accuses Russia of having deployed troops at the plant’s facilities and of having stockpiled weapons.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for an “immediate cease” of all military activity around the facility and warned that the continuation of hostilities could “lead to a catastrophe.” The United States defended the idea of creating a demilitarized zone around the plant.
(You may be interested in: Russia: they arrest a journalist who protested live against the invasion of Ukraine)
At Russia’s request, the UN Security Council will examine the security situation at the plant this Thursday.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, will report to the Council on the situation at that facility.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky said Russia could cause an incident “even more catastrophic than Chernobyl,” referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster in northern Ukraine, when the country was still part of the Soviet Union.
(You can read: G7 asks Russia to withdraw from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine)
The central Zaporizhianear the city of Energodar, on the banks of the Dnieper River, has six of the 15 Ukrainian reactors, capable of supplying energy to four million homes.
“Russia has turned the nuclear plant into a battlefield,” Zelensky said in a videoconference speech at a donor meeting in Copenhagen.
The Ukrainian president called for tougher sanctions against Russia, calling this country a “terrorist state.”
(Also: Russia says that negotiations with the US continue for the exchange of prisoners)
Along the same lines, the Parliament of Latvia, a member country of the European Union (EU) and NATO, declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism” and considered that its actions in Ukraine constituted “genocide”.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zajárova, considered that this parliamentary statement had no more substance than “primary xenophobia”.
*With information from AFP
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