KYIV (Reuters) – The Ukrainian atomic energy agency accused Russia on Monday of flouting nuclear safety by sending a “kamikaze” drone over part of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in the Mykolaiv region just after midnight.
Energoatom said the Iranian-made Shahed drone had been detected at 00:46 early Monday over the station and said it was calling on the international nuclear community to protect atomic sites from the risks of war.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable violation of nuclear and radiation safety,” Energoatom wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Invading Russian forces currently occupy another Ukrainian nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia complex, Europe’s largest, near front lines in Ukraine’s southeast. Talks are ongoing to establish a safety zone around the plant.
Both sides have accused the another of shelling the Zaporizhzhia site and Ukraine has said Russian forces are pressuring its Ukrainian staff, including through violence, to sign contracts with a subsidiary of Russia’s atomic agency.
Moscow is not known to have commented directly on these accusations. In October, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree transferring the Zaporizhzhia plant from Energoatom to a subsidiary of Rosatom, a move Kyiv said amounted to theft.
(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
