Zelenskyy Calls Nuclear Plant Shelling a Global Concern

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address late Thursday that “another shelling by Russia was recorded” around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear power facility.

“No one else has used a nuclear plant so obviously to threaten the whole world,” Zelenskyy said. “And absolutely everyone in the world should react immediately to expel the occupiers from the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. This is a global interest, not just a Ukrainian need.”

Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the shelling at the nuclear plant.

“The facility must not be used as part of any military operation,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “Instead, urgent agreement is needed at a technical level on a safe perimeter of demilitarization to ensure the safety of the area.”

Zelenskyy also said that on Thursday he met with chef Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen, the international humanitarian organization that feeds people in countries suffering wars and natural disasters.

“From the first days of Russia’s full-scale war against our country, his organization started working on the border with Poland – for migrants,” Zelenskyy said. “Subsequently, it started activities in many cities of Ukraine. … More than 130 million meals have been cooked for our citizens.”

In another development, two ships left Ukraine ports Friday. Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, wrote in a tweet that one of the vessels would be loaded with 23,000 tons of grain bound for Ethiopia. Fourteen ships, including the two Friday, have left Ukraine’s ports laden with foodstuffs.

The British defense ministry said Friday that explosions earlier in the week at the Russian-operated Saky military airfield in western Crimea “certainly destroyed or seriously damaged” eight planes belonging to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet.

The cause of the original blast is not clear, according to the report posted on Twitter, but the ministry said “the large mushroom clouds visible in eyewitness video were almost certainly from the detonation of up to four uncovered munition storage areas.”

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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