Shelling At Ukraine Nuclear Plant As UN Issues Warning

Russia and Ukraine accused each other of new shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to address concerns over the facility's security

Kyiv, Ukraine, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Aug, 2022 ) :Russia and Ukraine accused each other of new shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday ahead of a UN Security Council meeting to address concerns over the facility's security.

Both Moscow and Kyiv said there were five rocket strikes near a radioactive material storage area at the plant, Europe's biggest nuclear facility which has been a focus of renewed fighting in recent days.

Ukraine's nuclear agency Energoatom said later that there had been fresh Russian shelling near one of the plant's six reactors that had caused "extensive smoke" and "several radiation sensors are damaged".

The Ukrainian plant is under the control of Russian troops and Ukraine has accused Moscow of basing hundreds of soldiers and storing arms there.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia could cause an incident "even more catastrophic than Chernobyl" -- a reference to the nuclear disaster in then Soviet Ukraine in 1986.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres also said in a statement that continued hostilities around the facility could "lead to disaster".