The fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant comes less than a week after Ukraine’s forces launched their largest incursion into Russian territory since the war started in 2022.
Russian state news agencies, TASS and RIA, cited the country’s nuclear energy company Rosatom as saying the main fire was extinguished shortly before midnight on Sunday.
Ukraine’s nuclear power company Energoatom said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that one of the cooling towers and other equipment were damaged.
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Russia’s TASS agency also reported, citing Rosatom’s statement, that a cooling tower was damaged. Citing local Russian emergency ministry representatives, TASS said it was a non-functioning tower.
Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of starting a fire on the grounds of Europe’s largest and now Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine on Sunday, with both sides reporting no sign of elevated radiation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of lighting the fire which he said was visible from the Kyiv-held city of Nikopol, which looks out onto the Russian-held plant.
Evgeny Balitsky, a Russian-installed official in the occupied south of Ukraine, accused Kyiv’s forces of causing the fire by shelling the nearby city of Enerhodar which, like the plant, was captured by Russia soon after its February 2022 invasion.
The IAEA said there had been no reported impact on nuclear safety at the site.
