Kyiv (dpa-AFX) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has called for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. In his evening video address on Thursday, he again accused Russia of “nuclear blackmail”: “Nobody else has used a nuclear power plant so obviously to threaten the whole world and to impose conditions.”
An accident at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant would be like a nuclear strike, only without the use of nuclear weapons, Zelenskyy said in Kyiv. The whole world should work to ensure that Russian troops leave Zaporizhia. “This is a global interest, not just a Ukrainian need.” Nuclear safety for the whole of Europe will only be assured once Ukraine regains control of the nuclear power plant.
The nuclear power plant also came under fire again on Thursday, with Russian and Ukrainian forces blaming each other. In New York on Thursday the UN Security Council about the situation in Zaporizhia. The plant on the Dnipro river has six 1000-megawatt reactors of Soviet design WWER./fko/DP/he