MOSCOW, December 18. /TASS/. The protective shield installed next to the dry cask storage of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant has already helped to avoid damage to the facility during shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the director general of the Rosenergoatom company, told TASS on Saturday.

According to Karchaa, the issue of an additional shield was brought up after the Ukrainian armed forces had launched artillery attacks on the NPP in July. In particular, additional engineering structure has protected the dry cask storage, which in previous periods had been repeatedly hit by artillery strikes from the Kiev-controlled cities of Marganets and Nikopol.

"The fragments of the shells that were fired at Zaporozhye NPP during one of the last, most powerful, strikes on November 20-21, were intercepted by the protective wall erected in front of the dry cask storage," Karchaa noted.

The Zaporozhye NPP, located in Energodar, is the largest in Europe. The total capacity of its six reactors is about 6,000 megawatts. In late February, the Zaporozhye NPP was taken over by Russian forces. Since then, the Ukrainian military has been periodically bombarding both Energodar’s residential quarters and the premises of the Zaporozhye nuke plant, employing drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.