UPDATE 2 - Fire erupts at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant, but no effect on nuclear safety reported: UN watchdog

ADDS REMARKS FROM RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESPERSON; CHANGES HEADLINE, DECK

By Serdar Dincel

ISTANBUL (AA) — A fire broke out Sunday at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, located in southern Ukraine, but the UN's atomic energy watchdog said nuclear safety was not affected.

Experts observed "strong dark smoke" from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant's northern area after explosions were heard in the evening, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on X, adding: "no impact has been reported for nuclear safety."

Ukraine and Russia have been trading blame over the incident.

"Six units in the power plant are in cold shutdown. There is no explosion or other danger," the Russian-installed regional governor of Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, said in a statement.

He added that the fire broke out in the plant’s cooling system due to shelling by the Ukrainian army.

"Where is Rafael Grossi and the entire IAEA? Where is at least some imitation of the work of this UN structure in this critical area?" Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.

Zakharova accused Kyiv and the West of undermining world energy and food security and called the Ukrainian Armed Forces' attack on the power plant "nuclear terror on the continent."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they "recorded from Nikopol that the Russian occupiers have started a fire on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant."

"Since the first day of its seizure, Russia has been using the Zaporizhzhia NPP only to blackmail Ukraine, all of Europe, and the world," Zelenskyy said on X.

The head of the military administration of Nikopol, Yevhen Yevtushenko, said on Telegram that the facility is currently "operating as normal as possible under the conditions of occupation," according to the National News Agency of Ukraine, (Ukrinform).