Ukraine Says Russia Considering Nuclear Plant Attack, Moscow Denies It

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivers a speech via videolink at the opening session on the first day of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, Britain June 21, 2023. Leaders and representatives from more than 60 countries are in London for a two-day conference to secure funding to help Ukraine recover from the ravages of war. Reuters

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday Ukrainian spies believe Russia was plotting an incident to release radiation from Europe's largest nuclear plant, an allegation denied by the Kremlin.

In a video statement, Zelenskiy said Kyiv was sharing its information with international partners about the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in southern Ukraine.

"Intelligence has received information that Russia is considering the scenario of a terrorist act at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant - a terrorist act with a release of radiation," he said. "They have prepared everything for this."

The Kremlin dismissed the allegation as "another lie", and said a team of U.N. nuclear inspectors had visited the plant and rated everything there highly. Zelenskiy did not say what evidence the intelligence agencies based their assertion on.

The six-reactor complex has been under occupation since shortly after Moscow's forces invaded Ukraine in February last year. The two sides have accused each other of shelling it, and international efforts to establish a demilitarised zone around it have failed so far.

"Unfortunately, I have had to remind (people) more than once that radiation knows no state borders. And who it will hit is determined only by the direction of the wind..." Zelenskiy said.

'DELIBERATE, CALCULATED CRIME'

Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, suffered the world's worst nuclear accident at Chornbobyl in 1986.

Zelenskiy made his statement two days after Ukraine's military intelligence chief accused Russia of "mining" the cooling pond that is used to keep the reactors cool at the Zaporizhzhia plant.

The plant lies beside a huge reservoir where water levels have plunged since a dam across the Dnipro River was destroyed earlier this month, flooding swathes of southern Ukraine. Kyiv blames Russia, which controlled the dam, for blowing it up. Russia says Ukraine sabotaged it.

In his video statement, Zelenskiy said intelligence agencies had gathered new evidence of how Russian forces blew up the dam and other structures at the hydroelectric plant.

"It was a completely deliberate, calculated crime," he said.