Russia seizes Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Russian forces on Friday have taken control of Europe’s largest nuclear site, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
• Officials said the fire that started in the area has been extinguished and radiation was normal.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Europeans to wake up and Russians to protest.

Russian forces took over Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday. Washington called it a reckless assault that risked catastrophe. The fire in a training building was extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.

Combat raged elsewhere in Ukraine as Russian forces surrounded and bombarded several cities in the second week of the assault launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A presidential adviser said a convoy had been halted on the southern city of Mykolayiv after local authorities said Russian troops had entered it. If captured, the city of 500,000 people would be the biggest yet to fall.

The capital Kyiv came under renewed attack, with air raid sirens blaring in the morning and explosions audible from the city center.

The Russian assault on the Zaporizhzhia plant showed how reckless the invasion has been, U.S. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

“It just raises the level of potential catastrophe to a level that nobody wants to see,” Kirby said.

Although the plant was later said to be safe and the fire out, officials worried about the precarious circumstances, with Ukrainian staff now operating under Russian control.

An official at Energoatom, the Ukrainian state nuclear plant operator, said there was no further fighting and radiation was normal, but his organization no longer had contact with the plant’s management or control over potentially dangerous nuclear material.

Russia’s grip on a plant that provides more than a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity was a big development after eight days of the war in which other Russian advances have been stalled by fierce resistance.

“Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians – Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address. In another address, he called on Russians to protest.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24. It was the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged cities, pounding them with artillery and airstrikes.

On Friday, Russia shut down foreign broadcasters including the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle. The most prominent independent Russian broadcasters, TV Dozhd (Rain) and Ekho Moskvy radio, were shuttered on Thursday. The lower house of parliament introduced legislation to impose jail terms on people who spread “fake” reports about the military.

On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine negotiators agreed at talks on the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape and to deliver medicines and food to areas of fighting.

Source: Reuters