Eight employees of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant have been injured in a drone attack on a substation in the southern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, Russian forces said on Wednesday.
The men were engaged in repair work to restore the power supply when they were deliberately targeted, said Alexey Likhachev, head of the Russian nuclear authority Rosatom.
He added that the Ukrainian attack was an "ostentatious violation" of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations on nuclear safety.
The substation is part of the infrastructure of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and supplies electricity to the city of Enerhodar, according to Likhachev. He stated that there had been three drone attacks on the facility within an hour and called for the IAEA to respond.
Russia occupied Europe's largest nuclear power plant shortly after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has held it ever since. Both sides of the conflict have repeatedly blamed each other for attacks on the plant and sabotage, with Russian complaints about Ukrainian drone attacks increasing in recent weeks.
Due to safety concerns, the reactors were shut down in 2022, but they still require cooling. IAEA observers are stationed on the site.
