Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the world narrowly avoided a ‘radiation disaster’ when the last regular line supplying electricity to Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was temporarily cut by shelling.
‘The world must understand what a threat this is: if the diesel generators had not turned on, if the automation and our station staff had not reacted after the blackout, then we would have already been forced to overcome the consequences of the radiation accident,’ Zelenskiy said. ‘Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster.’