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Another Chernobyl looms as Ukraine continues to attack ZNPP, former Ukrainian PM warns

"The Kiev regime is destroying nuclear facilities without thinking about the consequences as it is endangering the safe and stable operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants and increasing the risk of a disaster," Nikolay Azarov stressed

MOSCOW, April 26. /TASS/. The Ukrainian military’s regular shelling attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) may lead to a Chernobyl-like disaster, Nikolay Azarov, who served as Ukrainian prime minister in 2010-14, said.

He pointed out that the Chernobyl disaster, which happened exactly 38 years ago, claimed hundreds of lives and caused irreparable damage to the environment, "while its social and economic impact can be felt to this day."

"Today, the Kiev regime’s illegal actions are once again putting the nuclear security of our continent at risk. The Kiev regime is destroying nuclear facilities without thinking about the consequences as it is endangering the safe and stable operation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants and increasing the risk of a disaster. The Kiev regime continues to stage provocations now and then, carried out by the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporozhye NPP area. Any reasonable person can see that they are committing a crime. It is highly dangerous to shell Europe’s largest nuclear power plant," Azarov wrote on Telegram.

The largest nuclear disaster in history occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant just before dawn on April 26, 1986. An explosion completely destroyed the reactor core, causing the power unit’s building to partially collapse. A total of about 380 mln curies of radioactive materials were released into the environment, contaminating more than 200,000 square kilometers of land, of which 70% was in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

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