New Delhi: Terming Moscow’s attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine to be a “war crime”, the United States embassy in Kiev on Friday said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his “reign of terror one step further”.
“It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin's shelling of Europe's largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further,” the US embassy in Kviev tweeted.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier dubbed the attack on the Zaporizhzhia power plant as “nuclear terror” and said the Russian propaganda had warned in the past to “cover the world in nuclear ash”.
“We don't know for sure what the results of this fire will be, we don't know when the explosion will happen or, God willing, not going to happen. Nobody can know or calculate for certain,” he said in a video message.
The Ukrainian President said the “terrorist country has reverted to nuclear terror” for the first time “ever in our history, in the history of human kind”.
Underlining that no one, as of now, has any estimation of the loss the nuclear attack can inflict, Zelenskyy said: “Russian propaganda had warned in the past to cover the world in nuclear ash. Now this isn't just a warning. This is real.”
“We don't know when the explosion will happen or, God willing, not going to happen. Nobody can know or calculate for certain, but our boys have always kept the nuclear plant safe. We made sure no provocations could happen. We made sure no one could go there or access it,” he added.
Stating Moscow’s attack is a planned one, Zelenskyy said the Russian tanks are equipped with thermal imagers so these are not accidental shootings.
Asserting “Europe needs to wake up”, Zelenskyy said the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe is “on fire right now”.
“Russian tanks are shooting at the nuclear blocks. These are tanks equipped with thermal imagers so they know what they are shooting at. They have prepared for it,” said Zelenskyy.
“I am addressing all Ukrainians, all Europeans and everyone who knows the word Chernobyl, who knows many casualties were inflicted by the explosion on the nuclear plant,” he added.