Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that the strike nearly hit the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the Mykolayiv region, about 200 kilometers north of the southern front of fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops. “At night, a missile fell 300 meters from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram channel that included video purported to show the hit and subsequent explosion. “Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it’s too late,” he added. Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear company, said three reactors at the plant continued to operate and no one was injured. He added that about 100 windows at the site were broken and there was a brief power outage. Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko accused Moscow on Monday of adopting a strategy of “nuclear terror” after Russian troops invaded in February. “Russia, in desperation, is putting the world on the brink of nuclear disaster,” he said. Moscow did not immediately confirm or deny the strike. Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of conducting artillery strikes on another nuclear power site – the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, located in the southern city of Energodar. A CCTV camera image purported to show a Russian military attack on the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant © Reuters The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, last week urged the Kremlin to hand over control of the Zaporizhzhia plant, warning that “persistent acts of violence” at the site increased the risk of a “nuclear accident or incident.” The IAEA council passed a resolution calling on Russia to “cease” all actions in and against the plant, and any other nuclear plant in Ukraine, to “ensure their safe and secure operation.” Russian forces have stepped up missile attacks on critical infrastructure, including power generators and a reservoir dam in the central city of Kryviy Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown. It follows a lightning counterattack in the northeastern region of Kharkiv that forced Moscow’s army to surrender more than 3,000 square kilometers of territory. It was the biggest military success for Ukrainian forces since they repelled Russia’s early war attempt to seize the capital, Kyiv. Ukraine last week claimed to have discovered a mass grave of more than 440 people in the northeastern city of Izyum that was recaptured as part of the operation. He said the discovery was further evidence of war crimes committed by Russian forces. On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the allegations were untrue. “That’s a lie,” he said. Oleg Sinegubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said on Monday that “of the 146 bodies that have been exhumed so far, the vast majority were civilians, including two children.” “Some of the dead have signs of violent death, there are bodies with tied hands and traces of torture. The dead were also found bearing wounds from explosives, shrapnel and stab wounds,” he added in a post on the Telegram channel.

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Ukrainian forces, increasingly armed by the West with modern weaponry, this weekend claimed to have added to territory recovered in the Kharkiv region by seizing parts of the east bank of the Oskil River and its reservoir. This would bring its troops closer to the border of the Russian-controlled eastern Luhansk region. It would also put them within artillery range of the roads that feed into Russia’s largest eastern concentration of forces in the northern parts of the Donetsk region.

The two regions make up Donbas, the “liberation” of which Russia’s president claimed as justification for the invasion launched by his troops seven months ago. In an interview broadcast this weekend on CBS’s 60 Minutes program, US President Joe Biden said Ukraine had “defeated Russia”, adding that victory meant “getting Russia out of Ukraine completely”. Addressing fears that Putin could resort to using tactical nuclear or chemical weapons, Biden said: “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Do not.” “It would change the face of warfare unlike anything since the second world war,” he added.