Watch: Thick dark smoke rises from Russia-occupied nuclear plant during fire

Dark smoke plumes pour into the sky meters above a cooling tower at a Russia-occupied nuclear plant on Sunday 11 August.

A Russian governor claimed the fire began with Ukrainian shelling while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Vladimir Putin’s forces had caused the fire.

The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog said experts “witnessed thick dark smoke” after hearing multiple explosions throughout the evening.

It comes as the Russian defence ministry said Ukrainian troops had advanced as much as 19 miles into Russia’s Kursk region in an audacious cross-border attack that began a week ago.