Fears of a dangerous accident at Ukraine’s giant Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant grew over the weekend after the evacuation of a nearby Russian-controlled town that is home to many plant workers.
The town of Enerhodar, located next to the plant, has been the site of ongoing attacks as Ukraine has intensified its assaults on the area.
“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” said Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, on Saturday.
“I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant.”
Russian forces took over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, soon after invading Ukraine in February 2022. They left Ukrainian staff in place to keep the plant running, and the six reactors have been placed in shutdown mode.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhia province, ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements in the area. Ukrainian officials said Sunday that the first residents being evacuated were locals who accepted Russian citizenship after the town was captured early in the war.
The settlements are about 30 to 40 miles from the front line of fighting between Ukraine and Russia, where Balitsky said Ukraine had stepped up attacks in the past several days.
Most of the plant staff live in Enerhodar, Grossi said, and the worsening attacks were creating “increasingly tense, stressful and challenging conditions for personnel and their families.”
Agency experts at the plant can “hear shelling on a regular basis,” he said.
“We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequence for the population and the environment,” Grossi said. “This major nuclear facility must be protected.”
Hopes of establishing a safety zone around the Soviet-era plant, which before the war produced about half of the nation’s electricity generated by nuclear power, have never materialized.
In the Ukrainian-held town of Nikopol, which also neighbors the power plant, officials said Sunday that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three other people were wounded in shelling by Russian forces.
Experts expect Ukraine to target the southern Zaporizhzhia region as part of its anticipated spring counteroffensive. In doing so, Ukraine could try to cut off Russia’s land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula and split Russian forces in two.
Ukraine has been making final preparations for the counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory, bolstered by fresh supplies of weaponry and ammunition from its Western allies.
Ukrainian officials say the Russian military has been seen stepping up its transport of armored vehicles into the front-line Zaporizhzhia region.
Fierce fighting continued as well on Sunday in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russia has been trying to overrun for more than nine months.
Ukrainian forces have been clinging to a position in the western outskirts of Bakhmut, although a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russia had captured two added districts in the city’s west and northwest. The spokesman had no further details.
Ukraine accused Russia over the weekend of using phosphorus in Bakhmut, and the Ukraine Special Operations Forces released a video on Sunday that showed the white fire that phosphorus munitions produce.
The use of white phosphorous, an incendiary weapon designed to cause burns or set fires, is banned under international law in civilian areas. It is allowed for the purposes of illumination or creating smoke screens.
“This is being fired directly at Ukraine positions and this would be a war crime,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a chemical weapons expert and former British army colonel.
“I expect because the Russians have failed to take Bakhmut conventionally, they are now using unconventional tactics to burn the Ukrainian soldiers to death or to get them to flee.”
It was not possible to verify, however, where or when the video was made, and Russia has denied previous accusations that it was using phosphorus munitions.
The head of the Wagner paramilitary group that has been fighting for the Russians threatened last week to pull out of Bakhmut, complaining of a lack of ammunition.
But on Sunday, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin posted a message on his Telegram channel saying he had been promised more ammunition and weapons “to continue further operations.”
Both Ukrainian and Russian media reported weekend strikes across Russian-occupied Crimea.
The increasing attacks on Russian-held targets are considered by military experts to be a sign of Ukraine’s aim to destroy Russian infrastructure ahead of a ground assault.
In other fighting, Russian shelling on Saturday and overnight into Sunday killed six civilians and wounded four others in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, according to local authorities.