Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Russians on Friday to stage protests against the takeover of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant by Russian forces.
A building at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was set on fire during intense fighting, Ukrainian officials said on Friday, sparking fears of a possible nuclear disaster. The fire was later extinguished.
“Russian people, I want to appeal to you: how is this possible? After all, we fought together in 1986 against the Chernobyl catastrophe,” he said in a televised speech, evoking memories of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
“You have to go to the streets and say that you want to live, you want to live on Earth without radioactive contamination. Radiation doesn’t know where Russia is, radiation doesn’t know where your country’s borders are.”
The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the attack at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant site on Ukrainian saboteurs, calling it a monstrous provocation.
Russian forces that invaded Ukraine last week have already captured the defunct Chernobyl power plant north of Kiev, which spewed radioactive waste across much of Europe after an accident in April 1986.
Analysts said the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is different and safer, but Zelensky said now is not the time to be silent.
“You have to remember the burning graffiti splattered by the explosion, the victims. You have to remember the glow about the destroyed power unit, the evacuation,” he said.
“How can you forget this? And if you have not forgotten, you must not be silent.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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