Fire at nuclear power plant as Ukrainian troops advance 30km into Russia – war latest

Russia has evacuated more than 76,000 people in the Kursk region as Ukrainian troops push further into its territory.

Vladimir Putin has been forced to call in reserve troops to aid what Moscow is calling a “counterterrorism operation”.

At the same time, a federal-level emergency was declared in Russia over the incursion.

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The UN nuclear watchdog’s director has strongly criticised the “reckless attacks” at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after explosions were heard and a fire broke out at the site.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said: “These reckless attacks endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They must stop now.”

The watchdog said the team was informed that an alleged drone attack on one of the plant’s cooling towers took place on Sunday.

However, there is no impact on nuclear safety, he said.

IAEA Support and Assistance Mission to Zaporizhzhya (ISAMZ) has requested immediate access to the cooling tower to assess the damage.

Russian forces lit a fire at the site of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.

Radiation levels were normal, he said, although the blaze is visible from Ukrainian-held territory.

A local official in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol said that Russian forces were rumoured to have set fire to a large number of tyres in the cooling towers, Reuters reported. Russia claimed the fire was started by nearby shelling.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border strikes from its western Kursk region at Ukraine’s Sumy region over the summer, something he said had deserved a “fair” Ukrainian response.

“Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response,” the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address to the nation amid a Ukrainian cross-border incursion into the Kursk region.

Kyiv’s audacious cross-border assault into Russia’s Kursk region has certainly ruffled feathers in Moscow. Vladimir Putin denounced it as a “large-scale provocation” while his officials have lined up to tell him the situation is under control – despite fighting continuing into a third day on Thursday and thousands of people having to evacuate the area.

Ukraine has an issue with the number of soldiers it can put on the battlefield and has been trying to up recruitment, so some may ask why it would commit resources to an incursion into Russia, especially when Moscow’s forces are putting Kyiv’s troops under pressure on other points of the 600-mile frontline, including around the key eastern town of Pokrovsk, several hundred miles away in the region of Donetsk.

Belarus said that it was sending more troops to its border with Ukraine on Saturday, saying Ukrainian drones had violated its airspace as part of Kyiv’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

Authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Belarusian air defense forces destroyed dozens of targets flying from Ukraine over the Mogilev region, which borders Russia, on Friday evening.

“The Ukrainian armed forces violated all rules of conduct and violated the airspace of the Republic of Belarus. In the eastern direction, very close to us in the Kostyukovichi district,” Lukashenko said at a meeting in Minsk on Saturday.

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said that the government regards the violation of its airspace as a provocation and is “ready for retaliatory action.”

The main fire at the Russia-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine has been extinguished, Russia’s TASS state news agency reported on Monday, citing Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom.

Ukraine’s nuclear power company Energoatom said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that one of the cooling towers and other equipment was damaged.

TASS also reported, citing Rosatom’s statement, that a cooling tower was damaged. Citing local Russian emergency ministry representatives, TASS said that it was a non-functioning tower.

Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of starting a fire on the grounds of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Sunday, as Ukraine urged residents to remain calm and reported no sign of elevated radiation.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog, which has a presence at the vast six-reactor facility, said its experts had seen strong, dark smoke coming from the northern area of the plant in southern Ukraine following multiple explosions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of lighting a fire which he said was visible from the Kyiv-held city of Nikopol which looks out onto the Russian-held plant.

Evgeny Balitsky, a Russian-installed official in the occupied south, accused Kyiv’s forces of causing the fire by shelling the nearby city of Enerhodar which, like the plant, was captured by Russia soon after its February 2022 invasion.

The IAEA said there had been no reported impact on nuclear safety at the site. “Team was told by (the nuclear plant) of an alleged drone attack today on one of the cooling towers located at the site,” it wrote on X.

Yevhen Yevtushenko, a local Ukrainian official in Nikopol said there was “unofficial” information that Russian forces had set fire to a large number of automobile tires in the cooling towers.

Zelenskiy published grainy video showing belching black smoke that appeared to be coming out a cooling tower with a blaze burning at its foot. “Currently, the radiation indicators are normal. But as long as Russian terrorists retain control over the nuclear plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal,” he said.

The Russian management of the facility said emergency workers had contained the fire and that there was no threat of it spreading further. “The fire did not affect the operation of the station,” it said.

The Russian Defense Ministry has claimed that 35 drones were shot down overnight over the Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod, Bryansk and Oryol regions.

Ukraine hasn’t commented on the Sunday drone attacks inside Russia. But they come as Ukraine has increased the pace of similar drone attacks largely targeting military infrastructure and oil depots in recent weeks.