Ukraine Says Russia Is Planning Strikes on Nuclear Facilities

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha delivers his speech at joint press conference with his Moldovan counterpart Mihai Popsoi, in the foreign ministry building during his first official visit in Chisinau, 19 September 2024. (EPA)
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha delivers his speech at joint press conference with his Moldovan counterpart Mihai Popsoi, in the foreign ministry building during his first official visit in Chisinau, 19 September 2024. (EPA)
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Ukraine Says Russia Is Planning Strikes on Nuclear Facilities

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha delivers his speech at joint press conference with his Moldovan counterpart Mihai Popsoi, in the foreign ministry building during his first official visit in Chisinau, 19 September 2024. (EPA)
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andrii Sybiha delivers his speech at joint press conference with his Moldovan counterpart Mihai Popsoi, in the foreign ministry building during his first official visit in Chisinau, 19 September 2024. (EPA)

Ukraine's foreign minister said on Saturday that Russia is planning strikes on Ukrainian nuclear facilities before the winter, and urged the UN's nuclear watchdog and Ukraine's allies to establish permanent monitoring missions at the country's nuclear plants.

"According to Ukrainian intelligence, (the) Kremlin is preparing strikes on Ukrainian nuclear energy critical objects ahead of winter," Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha wrote on X.

"In particular, it concerns open distribution devices at (nuclear power plants and) transmission substations, critical for the safe operation of nuclear energy."

Sybiha did not elaborate on why Kyiv believed such strikes were being prepared.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, called for a swift global response to the purported threat of a strike on a nuclear facility.

"This is preparation for a possible nuclear disaster scenario. Russia is a terrorist," he wrote on Telegram.

"They must be stopped here and now. The countries of the West and the Global South must react harshly to preparations for terror."

Russia has been waging an aerial bombardment campaign on Ukraine's power grid since autumn 2022 after invading the country earlier that year.

It has damaged or destroyed most of Ukraine's thermal power generating capacity and has sometimes hit dams, but has not yet struck any Ukrainian-controlled nuclear facilities.

Ukraine has previously accused Russia of nuclear blackmail after Russian forces occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, in March 2022, early on in the invasion.

Moscow denies that allegation.

Both sides have regularly accused each other of shelling areas next to the plant, which has on several occasions cut power lines to the plant, increasing the chance of a blackout that could cause a nuclear accident.

IAEA head Rafael Grossi has visited Ukraine and Russia several times throughout the war and has urged the sides not to engage each other near nuclear facilities.

"I think it is always a risk when there is a possibility of an attack on a nuclear power plant," he said on a visit to Kyiv at the beginning of September.



France Warns That North Korean Troops Fighting in Ukraine Would Be an Escalation

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
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France Warns That North Korean Troops Fighting in Ukraine Would Be an Escalation

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot shake hand with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP)

The involvement of North Korean regular troops to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine would be a serious escalation of the war, France and Ukraine's foreign ministers said at a joint press conference in Kyiv on Saturday.

France's Jean-Noel Barrot, who was making his first trip to Ukraine since becoming foreign minister in September, is also set to visit the east of the country on Sunday, where France will finance new two new centers for the protection of children impacted by the war.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused North Korea on Thursday of deploying officers alongside Russia and of preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow's war effort, although NATO chief Mark Rutte said there was no evidence of Pyongyang's presence at this stage.

"It would be serious and push the conflict into a new stage, an additional escalatory stage," Barrot said in Kyiv, adding that such a move would signal that Moscow was struggling in the war.

His Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, said the risk of escalation from the move was "huge."

"This is a huge threat of further escalation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. There is a big risk of it growing out of its current scale and borders."

Earlier this week, Zelenskiy presented his "victory plan" which he said would enable Ukraine to end the war no later than next year. The first step of this plan was unconditional NATO membership for Ukraine.

France's foreign minister said Paris was open to the idea of an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, but that talks would continue on the subject with allies.

"Regarding the invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, we are open to it and it's a discussion that we are having with our partners," Barrot said.