A Ukrainian drone reportedly crashed into a nuclear waste storage facility at the Kursk power plant in western Russia, causing damage to its walls. Russia’s foreign ministry made this announcement on Saturday, and it called on other governments to condemn Ukraine for its actions.
The Russian foreign ministry argued that Ukraine must have been aware that such an action could potentially trigger a full-scale nuclear catastrophe. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, issued a statement, saying, “We call on all governments to issue a strong condemnation of Kyiv’s barbaric actions, which are extremely dangerous and could lead to irreparable consequences.”
Moscow had previously stated that it had successfully thwarted the drone attack in the southern region of the country. Two news outlets had reported that an explosion had caused damage to the facade of a warehouse storing nuclear waste.
Zakharova provided further details, indicating that one drone, loaded with explosives, had damaged the walls of the nuclear waste facility, while two other drones had struck an administrative building complex. She also suggested that the components used in the attack may have been supplied by Western countries and insinuated that the attack could have had the consent of Ukraine’s allies or might have been ordered by them.
In response to the incident, the Kursk plant stated that there were no casualties, and radiation levels and plant operations remained normal. Notably, Ukraine typically neither confirms nor denies military operations conducted inside Russian territory.
This incident occurred on Thursday night, just a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had mentioned a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s western Khmelnitskyi region, which he believed had targeted the area’s nuclear power station. The United Nations nuclear watchdog reported that the attack had caused damage to numerous windows at the site but had not impacted the Ukrainian plant’s operations or its connection to the electricity grid.
It’s important to note that Reuters could not independently confirm either of these incidents.