By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday at 11:30 a.m. ET (1630 GMT) following Russia’s attack on Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine, diplomats said.
Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday in heavy fighting in southeastern Ukraine, triggering global alarm, but a huge blaze in a training building has been extinguished and officials said the facility was now safe.
Russia’s defense ministry blamed the fire at the plant on a “monstrous attack” by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
“The United States, the UK, France, Ireland, Norway, and Albania have called an emergency UN Security Council meeting at 11:30ET following Russia’s attack on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant in Ukraine,” Olivia Dalton, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, tweeted.
Several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom are expected to make remarks at the meeting.
The United Nations has been at the forefront of the diplomatic efforts on Russia’s invasion on Ukraine — having convened the Security Council and the General Assembly several times over the past few weeks.
On Wednesday, in a historic vote, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to reprimand Russia for invading Ukraine and demanded that Moscow stop fighting and withdraw its military forces, an action that aims to diplomatically isolate Russia at the world body.
Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than 1 million refugees have fled Ukraine since Feb. 24, when Putin ordered the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.
Although the nuclear plant was now said to be safe and the fire out, officials remained worried about the precarious circumstances, with Ukrainian staff operating under Russian control in battlefield conditions beyond the reach of administrators.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Raphael Grossi described the situation as “normal operations, but in fact there is nothing normal about this.”
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)
