Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, stoking international fears of a catastrophe on the continent. A look at the plant and the situation around it: EUROPE’S BIGGEST NUCLEAR PLANT The Zaporizhzhia plant is in southern Ukraine, near the town of Enerhodar on the banks of the Dnieper River. It is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. Built during the Soviet era, it has six reactors with a total capacity of 5,700 megawatts. Three of the reactors are in operation. Before the war, the plant accounted for about half of the electricity generated by nuclear power in Ukraine. The country has 15 reactors at four active plants, and also is home to the decommissioned Chernobyl plant, the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster. RUSSIANS TAKE CONTROL Russian troops overran the plant shortly after invading Ukraine on Feb. 24. During the fighting in early March, Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged fire near the plant. The skirmishes resulted in a fire at its training complex. The Russians have left the Ukrainian staff in place to keep the plant operating, and it has continued to supply electricity to government-controlled parts of Ukraine. The fighting around the plant has fueled fears of a disaster like the one at Chernobyl, where a reactor exploded and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear accident. Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated Chernobyl site soon after the invasion but handed control back to the Ukrainians after withdrawing from the area at the end of March. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE TRADE ACCUSATIONS Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the plant and using its grounds to launch strikes against Ukrainian-controlled territory across the Dnieper. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces have cynically employed the plant as a shield, knowing that the Ukrainians would be hesitant to fire back. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. A series of attacks on the plant over the past few days has damaged some of its auxiliary equipment but not its reactors, and there has been no threat of a radiation leak, according to Russian authorities. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukrainian shelling of the plant on Sunday caused a power surge and smoke, triggering an emergency shutdown and forcing the staff to lower output from two of the reactors. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the Ukrainian shelling of the plant is “fraught with catastrophic consequences for vast territories, for the entire Europe,” while the Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Ukraine of “taking the entire Europe hostage.” Ukrainian officials countered by accusing Russian forces of planting explosives at the plant in preparation for an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive in the region. They also have accused Russia of launching attacks from the plant using Ukrainian workers there as human shields and shelling the place themselves. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Russian shelling and mining of the plant amount to “nuclear blackmail.” Zaporizhzhia Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said that while the reactors are well protected by their thick concrete containment domes, it is impossible to guarantee their safe operation because of the Russian troops’ presence. He noted, too, that the storage sites at the plant […]

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