Missile strikes shut Ukrainian powerplants; millions in dark: Zelensky

Kyiv: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said that scores of nuclear reactors in two power plants in his country went shut down automatically due to Russia's Tuesday missile strikes, Reuters reported.

Zelensky said that the incident had left millions of Ukraine without electricity. Kyiv called the attack the heaviest wave of missile strikes in the nearly nine months of the Russian invasion.

"As a result of the strikes, automation today disabled several nuclear units at two stations - these are calculated consequences, and the enemy knew exactly what he was doing," Reuters quoted Zelensky from his video address.

Though the president did not name the affected plants, he stated the areas such as Kyiv, Lviv, Rivne and Volyn in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast, Kryvyi Rih and Poltava in the centre, Odesa and Mikolaiv in the south and Zhytomyr in the north.

However, Reuters adds that it could not immediately verify the strike reports.

Further, one missile killed two people in Poland, next to the Ukraine border, on Tuesday. While investigations are going, probing the origin of the attack, there are concerns that the war might spill into Ukraine's neighbours.

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