Rosatom says 2 Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant facilities damaged in overnight attack

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said Monday that two facilities at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) were damaged in an overnight attack.

Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev said a laboratory building located 200 meters (656 feet) from the plant’s fourth and fifth reactors and a radioactive waste processing facility were damaged.

“The roofs were damaged in both cases, but there is no threat to nuclear safety,” Likhachev said, according to Russian state media Tass.

He said plant workers continued to maintain the facility’s main equipment in safe condition despite ongoing attacks.

Rosatom informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of the need for repairs and called for a temporary ceasefire to allow the work, Likhachev said.

“In normal circumstances, transformer repair is a routine task; today, however, it is an operation that entails a direct risk to the lives of our repair crews. We have no right to put our people at risk,” he said, adding that the parameters of a temporary localized truce at the plant were being coordinated.

The situation around the ZNPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and one of the world’s 10 largest, remains tense amid persistent concerns over a potential nuclear disaster, as Moscow and Kyiv frequently accuse each other of carrying out attacks around the facility.

Since Sept. 1, 2022, IAEA personnel have been stationed at the plant, which has been under Russian control since March 2022.