MOSCOW, August 16. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops are shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear plant’s cooling system from heavy weapons, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Zaporozhye region military-civilian administration’s council, said on Tuesday.
"The Zaporozhye NPP’s reactor needs to be cooled. <…> Several dozen shots were made from heavy weapons at the cooling system. It is not protected in a way the reactor is and our enemies do have a possibility to damage it and hamper proper cooling of the reactor," he said in an interview with the Solovyov Live television channel.
According to Rogov, Ukraine is targeting the plant’s cooling system. Any damage to it may lead to the reactor’s overheating, which is fraught with a catastrophe that can be worse than the Chernobyl accident.
Located in the city of Energodar, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is controlled by Russian troops. In recent days, Ukrainian forces delivered several strikes at its territory using unmanned aerial vehicles, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launch systems. In most cases, such attacks are repelled by air defense systems but several shells hit infrastructure facilities and the vicinity of the nuclear waste storage.