What happened with the Ukraine Kursk attack and the nuclear plant fire

Moscow and Kyiv have blamed each other for a large fire that broke out at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southern Ukraine on Friday, with the latest incident taking place amid Ukraine’s active border with Russia.

Ukrainian officials said Russian forces started the fire at the factory, which it has occupied since March 2022, while the Kremlin-installed governor of Zaporizhzhia said a Ukrainian attack was the cause of the fire.

The occupied nuclear power plant has been a frequent flashpoint between Ukraine and Russia, which have repeatedly accused each other of launching high-risk drone attacks on or near the plant, endangering the safety of the facility and threatening a nuclear disaster.

In the latest tensions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of starting the fire at the ZNPP in the town of Enerhodar, but said local radiation levels were normal.

“As long as Russian terrorists retain control of nuclear power plants, the situation is abnormal and cannot be normal. From the first day of seizure of Zaporizhzhya NPP, Russia has used it only to blackmail Ukraine, all of Europe and the world,” Zelenskyy said.

The Russian-installed governor of Zaporizhzhia denied the claim, saying in a Google-translated social media update that the Ukrainian attack was to blame for the fire at the facility, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

Sending on Telegram, Yevgeny Balitsky said that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) hit one of the plant’s cooling towers and caught fire, adding that the emergency services in the area had already localized and extinguished the fire.

“The Ukrainian regime, supported by NATO curators, systematically attacked the entire northern region of Zaporizhia, where UAVs, artillery barrels, and mortar artillery could reach. .

He said he had met with Russian President Vladimir Putin who “clearly showed vigilance and attention to strategic infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants.”

Neither party has provided evidence for these claims. CNBC could not verify the report.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which maintains a rotating team of inspectors at the Zaporizhzhia site to maintain safety protocols, said in a statement on Sunday evening that experts had witnessed “strong dark smoke” from the northern area of ​​the plant, after “multiple explosions” in evening time.

The UN nuclear watchdog said it had been notified of a drone strike on Sunday at one of the cooling towers. The IAEA says that, for now, there is no impact on nuclear safety.

Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv have escalated in recent days, following an attack by Ukrainian forces on the Russian border region of Kursk.

The border offensive began last Tuesday and appears to have come as a surprise, with the Russian Defense Ministry revising its initial estimate to say last Thursday that around 1,000 troops and many tanks and armored vehicles were involved in the attack.

On Sunday, an unnamed senior Ukrainian security official told the AFP news agency that “thousands” of troops were involved in the operation, which signaled a bid to “stretch” and “destroy” Russia. CNBC could not verify the report.

About 3,000 people have been evacuated from the region amid Ukraine’s drone and missile attacks, according to regional Governor Alexei Smirnov. He posted on Telegram on Monday that the threat of UAV attacks is ongoing, saying overnight that Russia’s “air defense forces and assets are on high alert to repel possible attacks.”

As a result, Kyiv’s offensive has disrupted Russia’s summer offensive in eastern Ukraine, forcing Moscow to send troops to Kursk.

Last week, Russian defense officials claimed that the factions were blocking Ukraine’s advance toward Kursk. Geolocated footage and Russian military bloggers meanwhile suggest Ukrainian forces are within 35 kilometers of Russia, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War think tank.

Ukraine’s operation in Kursk has allowed Ukrainian forces to at least seize the battlefield initiative in one part of the front line, ISW said.

“Russia’s ownership of the theater initiative from November 2023 has allowed Russia to determine the location, time, scale, and terms of the war in Ukraine and to force Ukraine to spend materiel and manpower on reactive defense operations,” ISW said.

“Ukrainian operations in Kursk Oblast (region), however, have forced the Kremlin and the Russian military command to respond and redeploy forces and resources to sectors where Ukrainian forces have opened attacks.”

ISW suggested that Putin and the Russian military command “probably wrongly assumed that Ukraine lacked the ability to counter the initiative.”

Ukraine has been characteristically tight-lipped about its latest operations into Russia’s border areas. Kursk is one of the few border areas that have experienced small and shorter incursions and are subject to more frequent Ukrainian drone attacks and shelling in recent months.

Russia and Ukraine say they do not target civilian areas.

President Zelenskyy acknowledged the attack on Sunday, but referred to “Ukraine’s actions to push the war into the aggressor’s territory.”

Zelenskyy said thanks to the Ukrainian Unit “which guarantees this” and “Ukraine proved that it is really possible to bring justice and ensure exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”