The largest nuclear complex in Ukraine and also in Europe has stopped supplying electricity to the territories controlled by Ukraine, authorities backed by the Kremlin reported today, quoted by the AP agency.
The announcement came at a time when inspectors from the United Nations (UN) nuclear agency continue their mission at the site.
The Russian-appointed municipal administration in Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhia factory is located, justified the situation with an alleged shelling by Ukrainian troops this morning that destroyed a major power line.
“The supply of electricity to the territories controlled by Ukraine has been suspended due to technical difficulties,” the municipal administration said. However, it is unclear whether electricity from the nuclear complex is reaching Russian-controlled areas.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Kremlin-appointed regional administration, said a shell hit an area between two reactors. Such claims could not be immediately confirmed by other sources.
In recent weeks, Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for bombing the unit and its surroundings, while accusing each other of trying to boycott the visit of the UN experts, who arrived at the nuclear complex on Thursday.
The mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency is to help protect the site.
The Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukrainian troops of trying to seize that space on Friday, despite the presence of IAEA experts, by sending 42 boats with 250 special forces soldiers and foreign “mercenaries” to try to land in the shore of the reservoir. near Kakhovka.
The Russian Ministry said that four Russian warplanes and two helicopters destroyed about 20 boats and the others returned to their course. He also reported that the Russian artillery hit the right bank of the Dnieper River, controlled by Ukraine, to hit the landing party that was in retreat.
The same ministry claimed that the Russian army killed 47 soldiers, including 10 “mercenaries” and wounded 23. This data could not be independently verified through other sources.
Russia had previously said that some 60 Ukrainian soldiers had tried to land near the factory on Thursday and that Russian forces had prevented that attempt.
As of this morning, neither the Ukrainian government nor the country’s nuclear power operator, Enerhoatom, has commented on these accusations.
The nuclear complex has repeatedly suffered complete disconnection from Ukraine’s power grid since last week, with Enerhoatom blaming shelling and mortar fire near the site.
Local Ukrainian authorities, for their part, accused Moscow of attacking two cities near the nuclear complex, on the other side of the Dnieper River, with ‘rockets’, an accusation that has been repeated in recent weeks.
In Zorya, a small town about 20 kilometers from the Zaporizhia factory, residents heard the sound of explosions in the area on Friday. However, it is not the bombing that worries them most, but the risk of a radioactive leak from the factory.
“The factory, yes, is the scariest part,” Natalia Stokoz, a mother of three, told the AP, explaining: “Children and adults will be affected, and it’s scary if the nuclear complex explodes.”
During the first weeks of the war, the authorities issued iodine tablets and masks to people living near the factory in case of possible radiation exposure.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today offered to take on the role of “facilitator” on the issue of the Zaporizhia nuclear complex, in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency. .
In parallel, the Ukrainian military reported today that Russian forces pressed overnight in the country’s industrial east, while trying to hold onto captured areas in northeastern and southern Ukraine, including the Kherson region.
They said Ukrainian forces had repelled around half a dozen Russian attacks in the Donetsk region, including near two towns that had been identified as key targets in Moscow’s effort to capture the rest of the province.
The Donetsk region is one of two that make up the industrial heartland of Ukraine’s Donbass, along with Lugansk, which was invaded by Russian troops in early July.
Separately, a Russian shelling killed an 8-year-old boy and wounded four others in a southern Ukrainian city near the Kherson region, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Source: Observadora
