Ukraine war: Why Russia’s statements about Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant are deeply worrying

It was a nerve-wracking night for Ukrainians and the anxiety goes on.

Having a nuclear power plant in enemy hands has been the cause of deep concern for Ukrainians throughout the war. Never more so than now.

They have just heard warnings from their president and intelligence chiefs that the plant has been mined with explosives – but also worrying statements by the Russians.

War latest: Ukrainians flee – as Russia ‘lays possible explosives on nuclear plant roof’

When Russians claim the Ukrainians are about to do something it often means they are about to do it themselves, most recently with the Kakhovka dam shortly before it’s believed the Russians blew it up.

So claims by Russians that the Ukrainians were about to attack the Zaporizhzhia power plant last night were deeply worrying.

The Ukrainian government issued instructions on how to leave a radiation zone last night too on social media, doing nothing to calm nerves.

This is what we know about the plant.

Sky sources at the plant say they have noticed a reduction in the number of patrols there and Ukrainian military intelligence says it believes Russians have partially withdrawn from the plant. That may or may not be a sign they are planning to create an incident there.

The good news is, a few days ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency said there were no signs of explosives being laid there.

We are in the thick of an information war and the Russians have had no qualms about using their control of the plant to spread fear before.

What worries the Ukrainians most is what Russia did to the Kakhovka dam a month ago and the muted response from the rest of the world.

It created a massive disaster by unleashing the contents of Europe’s second-biggest reservoir, flooding the homes of tens of thousands of people downstream and depriving the same number of water upstream.

Voices in the West condemned the move but a delegation of African leaders came to Ukraine the week after and made little of it, urging both sides to de-escalate instead. Their determination to find a moral equivalency between the invaders and the invaded utterly infuriated the Ukrainians.

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If Vladimir Putin was testing the water for his next act of mass destruction he will hardly have felt deterred, making the Ukrainians’ jitters over Zaporizhzhia all the more understandable.