A fire broke out at Ukraine’s Zaporozhye nuclear power plant on Sunday, with Moscow and Kiev blaming each other.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared news of the fire in a post on X, which featured a dramatic video that appeared to show smoke billowing from a cooling tower. “We have records from Nikopol that Russian occupiers set fires on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant,” Zelensky said, noting that radiation levels were normal.
Enehodar. We learned from Nikopol that the Russian occupiers set fire to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
Currently, radiation levels are within normal limits. However, as long as Russian terrorists continue to control nuclear power plants,… pic.twitter.com/TQUi3BJg4J
— Vladimir Zelensky/Vladimir Zelensky (@ZelenskyyUa) August 11, 2024
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-appointed governor of Zaporozhye, blamed the fire on a Ukrainian drone on Telegram. “Tonight, a cooling tower at a nuclear power plant caught fire as a result of an incendiary drone strike,” he said. “The Ukrainian regime, with the support of NATO, is systematically shelling the entire northern region. [region] with drones, and [artillery]”.
Balicki said the fire was under control and said in a follow-up post that radiation levels were normal. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency said it was monitoring developments and that nuclear safety would not be immediately affected. It also said it had requested an immediate inspection of the plant.
“These reckless attacks endanger the nuclear safety of nuclear power plants and increase the risk of nuclear accidents. They must stop now,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement.
The world has been paying close attention to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant for years. Russia took control of the power plant early in its official ground invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A fire also broke out but was quickly brought under control.
Images of cooling water towers on fire in Ukraine have everyone on edge, and for good reason. The Chernobyl disaster released large amounts of radiation into the world’s air, allowing the world to see the worst-case scenario of a nuclear leak. But nuclear power plant technology has changed significantly since the days of Chernobyl, and it is unlikely that any reactor at Zaporizhia would experience such a severe meltdown.
But you know, the fight over nuclear power plants is still bad. This may happen in another place soon. The Zaporozhye fire comes as Ukraine’s ground invasion of Russia’s Kursk region comes close to the Kursk nuclear power plant. The Kursk NPP is smaller than the Zaporozhye NPP, but there are always risks associated with operating near nuclear material.
“At this moment, I would like to call on all parties to exercise maximum restraint to avoid a nuclear accident that could have serious radiological consequences,” said the IAEA’s Grossi.
