Fire breaks out at Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine amid Russian shelling
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Ukraine: A fire broke out at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the largest of its kind in Europe, on early morning today after an attack by Russian troops, the mayor of the nearby town of Energodar said.
The blaze erupted at a power unit of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to spokesman Andrei Tuz.
The station at Zaporizhzhia, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine, supplies an estimated 40 percent of the country's nuclear power.
Shortly after Russian shelling led to a fire, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there had been no change in reported radiation levels. Radiation security had been secured, the plant's director told Ukraine 24 TV.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Russian troops to stop attacking Europe's largest nuclear power plant and warned that the fallout from a disaster at the Zaporizhzhia plant would be magnitudes worse.
"If it blows up, it will be 10 times larger than Chornobyl! Russians must IMMEDIATELY cease the fire, allow firefighters, establish a security zone," Kuleba tweeted.
There has been fierce fighting between local forces and Russian troops, Dmytro Orlov said in an online post, adding that there had been casualties without giving details.
Ukraine and Russia agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians, officials from both sides said yesterday, the only tangible progress from a second round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier yesterday that Moscow's advance in Ukraine is going "according to plan", as he opens a meeting with his security council. Russia is at war with "neo-Nazis" and that "Russians and Ukrainians are one people", he added.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called for direct talks with Putin, as the "only way to stop the war", urging the West to increase military aid to Ukraine, saying Russia will advance on the rest of Europe otherwise, with the Baltic states first in line.