Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine has been the subject of fresh charges from Moscow and Kyiv on Saturday. The location has been the focus of worldwide worry that fighting there could lead to a disaster.
Since the beginning of March, Russian military have been in charge of Zaporizhzhia, the biggest nuclear power facility in Europe. It is still run by Ukrainian employees, and in recent weeks the two sides have traded accusations regarding shelling near the plant.
Russian troops shelled the plant complex's grounds once again in the previous 24 hours, according to the state nuclear power corporation of Ukraine, Energoatom.
“The damage is currently being ascertained,” Energoatom wrote in a statement on Telegram.
The Ukrainian military was charged by Moscow's defence ministry with bombarding the factory complex three times in the previous day.
The battlefield story could not be confirmed by Reuters.
“A total of 17 shells were fired, four of which hit the roof of Special Building No. 1, where 168 assemblies of U.S. WestingHouse nuclear fuel are stored,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
It stated that three more shells detonated close to a structure housing new nuclear fuel storage and 10 more did so close to a dry storage facility for spent nuclear material. It stated that there was no change in the plant's radiation condition.
After two of Zaporizhzhia's six reactors were reconnected to the grid following shelling that led the nuclear plant to be disconnected for the first time in its history, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated on Friday that the situation there remained "extremely perilous."
After being completely removed from the grid on Thursday, the plant's two operational reactors were restored to the grid on Friday evening, according to a statement from Energoatom.
In addition, the Russian ministry said in its daily briefing that it had damaged a sizable ammunition storage facility in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region that had housed M777 Howitzer and HIMARS rocket system projectiles built in the United States.
According to the ministry, the Russian Air Force downed a MiG-29 in the eastern Donetsk region and damaged six additional missile and artillery weapons stores in the Donetsk, Mykolaiv, and Kherson regions.