Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant Seized By Russia: Everything We Know So Far

Russian military forces seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southeast on Friday, hours after the facility was attacked.

With six reactors, Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe. It is located in the city of Enerhodar, which is about 340 miles southeast of the capital Kyiv.

Moscow's forces had set an adjacent five-story training facility on fire that has now been contained.

“Operational personnel are monitoring the condition of power units,” Ukraine's regional state administration said Friday on social media, quoting the Ukrainian nuclear inspectorate, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the reactors at Zaporizhzhia power station “are protected by robust containment structures and reactors are being safely shut down.”

The site provides about 25% of Ukraine’s power generation.

Earlier, there were concerns the fire at the training facility could affect the plant. However, the UN’s atomic watchdog said local officials have informed them the “essential” equipment at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was unaffected by the fire.

These machines are “not meant to be exposed to missiles and high explosives – they’re not designed for this," Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, told Al Jazeera.

“The power plant itself, if it was hit, would not generate the radioactivity or in all likelihood that Chernobyl did,” he said.

Chernobyl plant still sees radioactive leak from history’s worst nuclear disaster 36 years ago.

“But if the spent fuel pond, which is where they put the used fuel, was hit – it could easily by a multiple of the effect of Chernobyl,” Sokolski said. “It depends on what you hit and what happens to what you hit.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of resorting to “nuclear terror” and wanting to “repeat” the Chernobyl disaster.

“No country other than Russia has ever fired on nuclear power units. This is the first time in our history. In the history of mankind. The terrorist state now resorted to nuclear terror,” he said in a video message, as per Al Jazeera.

Zelensky said Russian tanks shot near nuclear blocks in the wee hours of Friday morning, causing the risk of an explosion.

"They know what to target. They were prepared for this. There are six power units one of which exploded in Chernobyl," he said.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the whole of Europe was at risk of a nuclear catastrophe. Plant spokesman Andriy Tuz reportedly said shells were falling directly on the plant and had hit one of the facility’s six reactors, which was under renovation and not operating. However, there was nuclear fuel inside, he said.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces entered its second week as Zelensky urged Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to sit down for talks while calling for more international support. Putin has said Russia’s military operations in Ukraine are “going to plan,” Al Jazeera reported.

Russian troops are currently in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. They had forced their way into the council building on Thursday, media reports said. The port city of Kherson, which has a strength of 250,000 people, is strategically placed where the Dnipro River flows into the Black Sea. It is the first significant city to fall into Moscow's hands.