A pro-Russian official said Thursday radiation levels around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine remained normal after Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of striking the facility.
“No contamination has been recorded at the station, radiation levels are normal,” the head of the Moscow-installed regional administration, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on messaging app Telegram.
He said among the infrastructure hit Thursday was a radioactive isotope storage facility. “Staff at the station have been instructed to move to protected premises,” he added.
Speaking separately on Russian state television, Balitsky said the station was home to “thousands of tonnes of nuclear waste”.
In case of an accident, this “will make the territory unlivable,” he added.
He accused the Ukrainian army of seeking to destroy the nuclear waste storage facility “in order to create some kind of dirty bomb on our territory”.
The authorities are considering whether locals need to be evacuated, Balitsky added.
