MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has accused the Ukrainian authorities and the West of an attempt to stage a Chernobyl-like disaster at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. With a capacity of around 6,000 megawatts, the Zaporozhye NPP generated a fourth of Ukraine’s electricity. Since 1996, it has been part of Ukraine’s Energoatom generating company. In March 2022, Russian forces established control of the facility. Now, the NPP is operating at 70% of its capacity due to the oversupply of electricity on the liberated territories of the Zaporozhye region.
"The scumbags in Kiev and their Western backers seem to be ready to stage another Chernobyl. Rockets and shells are falling ever closer to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant’s reactors and radioactive isotope storage facilities," Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Friday. He dismissed the allegations Russia was behind these attacks as "one-hundred-percent nonsense."
"Even the UN does not believe this," Medvedev stressed.
The Zaporozhye NPP, located in the city of Energodar, is currently under the Russian army’s control. In recent days, Ukrainian forces have carried out a number of strikes against its territory, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers. In most cases, the attacks were upset by air defense systems, but several shells hit some infrastructure facilities and the nuclear waste storage area.