MELITOPOL, September 8. /TASS/. A large-scale attack by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from Ukraine’s armed forces has been registered in Energodar, Maxim Pukhov, mayor of the satellite city of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), stated.

"Today, the enemy launched numerous UAVs at Energodar. By this moment, three drones have already been shot down and two have been jammed by an electronic warfare system. The attack is ongoing. It is unsafe to be in open areas," Pukhov wrote on his Telegram channel.

The mayor has urged residents to avoid walks or visiting stores and gas stations.

Over the past couple of months, Ukrainian troops have been attacking Energodar and the nuclear facility’s infrastructure almost on a daily basis. On August 6, the Ukrainian army delivered a drone strike on the Zaporozhye NPP’s training center. On the same day, the adversary targeted the vehicle of a team of electricians who were restoring power lines in Energodar. On September 5, one individual sustained serious injuries in a Ukrainian shelling attack.

Located in Energodar, the Zaporozhye nuclear facility, with roughly 6GW of capacity, is the largest of its kind in Europe. Russia took control of the plant on February 28, 2022, in the first days of its special military operation in Ukraine. Since then, units of the Ukrainian army have periodically carried out shelling both of residential districts in nearby Energodar and the premises of the nuclear plant itself, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). In most cases, air defense systems repel the attacks, although several times shells hit infrastructure facilities and the vicinity of a nuclear waste storage depot. In order to protect the ZNPP against such strikes, engineering structures forming a safety net of sorts have been built on its premises. All six power units of the nuclear facility are in a "cold shutdown" mode without producing any electricity.

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been stationed at the nuclear facility since September 2022 with constant rotations.