Ukraine on Monday rejected Russian accusations of a drone attack on the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (south), the largest in Europe, saying the site had been hit by a Russian device.
This plant has been occupied by the Russian army since the start of the invasion of Ukraine two years ago. Armed incidents around the site regularly lead to fears of a serious accident.
Russia “hit the Zaporizhia power plant with its drones and claims that the threat to the plant and to nuclear security came from Ukraine,” the Ukrainian government center for combating disinformation said on Telegram.
He considered that Moscow’s accusations are part of a “campaign of provocations and false information” against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military intelligence service (GUR), renowned for its regular attacks in occupied territories and on Russian territory, also blamed a Russian drone.
“Ukraine has nothing to do with the slightest armed provocation within the confines of the illegally occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant,” declared Sunday evening the spokesperson for the GUR, Andriï Yussov, to the Ukrainian site Ukraïnska Pravda, which pointed out a “well-known and permanent criminal practice of the occupiers”.
Russia said on Sunday that the territory of the plant had been attacked by Ukrainian drones and that one of the devices had exploded above one of the reactors, without causing an increase in radiation levels.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on X that its experts had “confirmed the physical impacts of drone attacks at the Zaporizhia power plant today, including on one of its six reactors,” without attributing them by name to Ukraine.
The IAEA reported one injury, while the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom said one of the drones had hit the plant’s canteen and injured three people.