The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on the banks of the Dnipro River is occupied by Russian forces. Credit…David Guttenfelder for The New York Times
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — Artillery fire resumed Sunday from the direction of a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, with shells penetrating a town from which the Ukrainian military has been unable to retake the fire, for fear of causing a meltdown or releasing radiation in the area. plant
Hours before the bombings, there were reports that conditions were breaking down in and around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The flight of civilians from the area accelerated on Saturday.
The plant is the first active nuclear power plant in a combat zone. The United States and the European Union have called for the formation of a demilitarized zone, as fighting in and around the plant and its active reactors and stored nuclear waste have raised particular concerns.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a late-night speech on Saturday that Russia had resorted to “nuclear blackmail” at the plant, reiterating a Ukrainian analysis that Moscow was using it to halt a Ukrainian counteroffensive toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, where Russian conventional military defenses appear increasingly unstable.
Contrary to the fears of some analysts when Moscow launched its invasion in February, the most pressing nuclear threat in the Ukraine war appears to be Russia damaging the civilian plant, rather than deploying its own nuclear weapons. Russia says it is Ukrainian forces that are bombing the plant.
Engineers say yard-thick reinforced concrete containment structures protect the reactors even from direct hits. International concern, however, has grown that the bombings could start a fire or cause other damage that would lead to a nuclear accident.
The complex’s six pressurized water reactors contain most radiation sources, reducing risks. After pressurized water reactors failed at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011, Ukraine upgraded the Zaporizhzhia site to allow shutdown even after the loss of cooling water from outside containment structures, Dmytro Gortenko, a former plant engineer, said in an interview.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that on Saturday, Russian artillery fire hit a bomb, damaged a fire station and started fires near the plant that could not be immediately extinguished in due to the damage to the fire station.
In fields near the Russian-controlled town of Enerhodar, near the plant, long lines of cars carrying fleeing civilians formed on Saturday, according to social media posts and another former plant engineer who ‘has kept in touch with local residents.
“The locals are leaving the city,” said the former engineer, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Oleksiy, because of security concerns. Residents had been leaving for weeks, but the pace picked up after Saturday’s bombings and fires, he said.
Since Russia captured the plant in March, its military has controlled the facility, while Ukrainian engineers have continued to operate it.
Ukrainian employees are not fleeing, they are sending their families, said Oleksiy, who left in June. Enerhodar was built for the plant’s employees during the Soviet period and had a pre-war population of around 50,000.
Ukraine has accused Russia of orchestrating artillery strikes on Ukrainian cities across the Dnipro River from the plant since July, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the south escalated.
Overnight into Sunday morning, Russian shells were fired at the Ukrainian city of Nikopol, which is across a reservoir from the power plant, Yevheny Yetushenko, the city’s Ukrainian military governor, said in a post on Telegram.
The Ukrainian military has said it has few options to fight back. In July, it used a self-destructing drone to hit a Russian rocket artillery launcher that was about 150 meters from one of the plant’s reactors.