The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was hit by two kamikaze drones last night, according to ZNPP’s communications director Yevgeniya Yashina. She told Sputnik: “It was established that the nuclear power plant had been attacked by a kamikaze drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.… In essence, this attack is one of the elements of disabling the station. This is an unprecedented threat to nuclear safety, since the nuclear power plant has suffered such serious damage for the first time. The physical integrity of the nuclear power plant has been breached, thereby breaching the basic principles of the IAEA.”
The operating company Rosatom stated today: “As a result of the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the cooling tower of the Zaporozhye NPP was seriously damaged.… [O]n August 11, at 20:20 and 20:32, one of the two cooling towers of the Zaporozhye NPP was directly struck by Ukrainian attack drones, resulting in a fire with burning [of] internal structures. By 23:30, the main fire was extinguished by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.”
The IAEA posted on X: “IAEA experts witnessed strong dark smoke coming from ZNPP’s northern area following multiple explosions heard in the evening. Team was told by ZNPP of an alleged drone attack today on one of the cooling towers located at the site.” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi also condemned what he called “reckless attacks” that “endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident.”
Yevhen Yevtushenko, the head of the Ukrainian-controlled military administration in the nearby Nikopol district—the district from which most of the shelling of ZNPP has originated for two and a half years—could only point to “unofficial reports” that suggest Russian forces had set fire to a large number of automobile tires in the plant’s cooling towers, according to AP.
