Zelensky said he warned Macron about dangerous provocations at the Zaporizhzhia factory.
Kyiv:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday that Russia was planning “dangerous provocations” at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
His statement came after Kiev and Moscow exchanged accusations of preparing for an incident at the factory, the largest in Europe.
The fear of the security risks to the nuclear power plant has been constant during the invasion of Russia.
“I warned Emmanuel Macron that the occupying forces are preparing dangerous provocations at the Zaporizhzhia factory,” Zelensky said in a statement following a phone call with Macron.
“We have agreed to work with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to keep the situation under maximum control,” he added.
Earlier, the Kiev army warned of the “possible preparation of a provocation on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia power plant in the near future”.
It claimed that “external objects similar to explosives on the outer roof of the third and fourth reactors” were placed at the site.
“Their blast should not damage power sources, but could create an image of shelling from the Ukrainian side,” it said, claiming Moscow would “misinform about this”.
In Moscow, an adviser to Russia’s Rosatom nuclear agency, Renat Karchaa, accused Kiev of planning an attack on the plant.
“Today we have received information that I am allowed to announce … On July 5, literally at night, in the dark, the Ukrainian army will try to attack the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” Karchaa told Russian state television.
He claimed that Ukraine planned to use “high-precision long-range weapons” in addition to drones.
Russia and Ukraine have regularly accused each other of endangering the safety of the plant since the outbreak of war in February 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
