Zelensky warns Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could be ‘the end of Europe’

Putin’s military forces seize Europe’s largest nuclear power plant as fire breaks out

Russia’s attack on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could be “the end of Europe”, Ukraine’s president has warned.

Ukraine said Russian military forces had seized the plant - Europe’s largest - in the city of Enerhodar after attacking it in the early hours of Friday, setting an adjacent five-storey training facility on fire.

Three Ukrainian troops were killed and two wounded during the shelling, according to a Ukrainian state nuclear company.

In an emotional speech in the middle of the night, president Volodymyr Zelensky said he feared an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia plant would be “the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe”.

“Only urgent action by Europe can stop the Russian troops,” he warned. “Do not allow the death of Europe from a catastrophe at a nuclear power station.”

Fears of a potential nuclear disaster at the plant also spread alarm across the rest of the world, before authorities said the fire had been extinguished.

Regional military officials said there had been some damage to the compartment of reactor number one in the shelling, but that it did not affect the safety of the power unit.

Ukrainian officials said radiation levels in the area were not at dangerous levels, and most experts saw nothing to indicate an impending disaster.

Video footage captured at the plant showed one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large candescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.

This image from video released by Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant shows bright flaring object landing in grounds of the nuclear plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, on 4 March 2022 (Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant via AP)

The assault renewed fears that Russia’s invasion could damage one of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and set off another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which happened about 65 miles north of the capital.

British prime minister Boris Johnson has called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in the “coming hours” to raise the issue of Russia’s attack on the nuclear power plant.

Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of Enerhodar, situated about 342 miles southeast of the capital Kyiv, said fierce fighting and “continuous enemy shelling” had caused casualties in the area, although he did not provide further details.

He said the Russian shelling stopped a few hours before dawn, and residents of the city of more than 50,000 who had stayed in shelters overnight could return home.

Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, pictured in October 2015 (AP)

The city awoke with no heat on Friday because the shelling damaged the city’s heating main, according to the mayor.

Russia's defence ministry blamed Ukrainian saboteurs for the attack on the nuclear plant, calling it a monstrous provocation.

But Britain’s deputy prime minister Dominic Raab said it was “very difficult to believe it wasn’t done deliberately”.

He told the BBC: “In any event, it is unlawful to attack a site like this and not to do your due diligence on it and to keep bombarding it.”

In Lithuania, president Gitanas Nauseda described the attacks by Russian forces as “nuclear terrorism”, and called for an immediate international response to “Russia’s nuclear crimes”.

While Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi branded Friday’s assault as an “attack against everyone’s security”, and Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Store said it was “in line with madness”.

Additional reporting by agencies