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Russian forces approached one of Europe’s largest nuclear power plants on Thursday, according to Ukraine’s deputy interior minister, who warned that violence there could lead to a massive radioactive catastrophe.
“Because [Vladimir] “Putin’s madness, Europe is on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe again,” Anton Herashchenko wrote in a translated post on Facebook.
He shared photos showing makeshift defenses in Enerhodar, the city where the Zaporozhye power plant is located. The Ukrainian government began warning on Wednesday that Russian activity in the region could lead to a new “nuclear catastrophe”.
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“The Russians are trying to enter Enerhodar,” Ukrainian MP Andriy Osadchuk told Fox News Digital.
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, issued a statement Thursday calling on both sides to avoid violence near Zaporozhye after reports that Russian infantry had taken over the area.
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Apart from the IAEA, Ukraine said it had reported “psychological pressure and moral exhaustion” among workers at the Chernobyl site, which Russian forces seized at the start of last week’s invasion.
Herashchenko warned that the volatile situation could lead to a new crisis, such as at Chernobyl in 1986 or at Japan’s Fukushima power plant after the 2011 tsunami.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Herashchenko shared this photo of an improvised blockade across the road leading to the nuclear power plant. (Anton Herashchenko)
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“Radiation does not know nationalities,” he said. “He kills indiscriminately.”
Hundreds of members of Ukraine’s parliament, known as the Verkhovna Rada, who remained in Kyiv met on Thursday. They discussed and voted on a number of issues, including asking the UN and the European Parliament to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine – in part to protect the country’s nuclear power plants and other combustible infrastructure.
Ukraine has 15 operating nuclear reactors on four separate sites, according to the IAEA. Six of the reactors are in Zaporozhye.
Osadchuk said lawmakers also agreed on strict new national security measures and a law to nationalize Russian property.
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In a statement, the Rada said it had adopted 14 new laws and resolutions.
Ukrainian authorities have accused Russian forces of increasingly attacking civilians and infrastructure, which the Kremlin denies.
The videos show mass destruction in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and in the besieged capital Kyiv.
On Thursday, a Russian air strike destroyed an alleged ammunition depot in the city, sending dark streams of smoke into the sky. Earlier this week, a separate strike leveled a civilian television tower near the Babin Yar Holocaust memorial, killing at least five people.
And the defense forces said their anti-aircraft weapons shot down a Russian missile near the city’s central station, which damaged the building but did not take lives.
The fighting at Enerhodar, near the Dnieper River, came when Russian forces captured the coastal city of Kherson and fought Ukrainian defenders in another port city, Mariupol.
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Along with Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014, the conquest of Ukraine’s southern ports will cut the country off from sea lanes and give Putin’s forces greater logistical control over the region.
Ukrainian and Russian envoys met earlier Thursday for talks in neighboring Belarus to discuss ways to evacuate civilians.