Russia threatened to blow up Europe's largest nuclear power plant, and Ukraine claims it planted explosives at the site.
State-owned nuclear agency Energoatom accusesVladimir Putin's military of being "ready to blow up" (ZNPP) nuclear power plant did.
Russia and Ukraine both accuse the other of recent shelling near factories that damaged radiation sensors.
Fears of a Chernobyl-like nuclear disaster are looming over the war-torn nation, with accusations of "nuclear blackmail."
Russia uses the ZNPP - Europe's largest nuclear weapons factory - as a "nuclear shield" with strategic leverage,to channel part of its energy to southern Ukraine. .
Energoatom now outright accuses Russia of "declaring ready to blow up" Zaporizhia.
This claim, which has not been independently verified, has become a significant escalation in the region, with the situation already being branded as "suicidal" and "out of control."
The explosion of a nuclear power plant could cause a nuclear disaster in Ukraine, southern Russia, and even Europe.
"If [ZNPP] explodes, he at Chernobyl will be ten times as large," Ukraine's foreign minister warned in April.
Radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster contaminated more than 77,000 square miles of land, and radioactive fallout clouds were also detected in the UK.
The Ukrainian press also picked up the allegations, without citing the sources of Russian Major General Valery Vasilyev.
A Russian commander was reported to have boasted that there would be "either Russian land or a scorching desert" around the ZNPP.
The Kyiv channel accused Russia of planting explosives at the factory.
Again, these claims have not been verified and are, at this stage, charges that Ukraine has imposed on Russia.
General Vasiliev was quoted as saying: we warned them.
"The enemy knows that the station is either Russian or nobody's. We are ready for the consequences of this step."
He said added:
It is impossible to assess the scale of this catastrophe
Petrocotin
} The citation has been widely shared by Ukrainian media and officials, but its source remains unknown.
Mikhailo Podlyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky's office, said that "[Russia] is now openly using nuclear blackmail at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant."
"Europe is under threat," he added.
Sun Online has contacted the UK Ministry of Defense and the Russian Embassy in London for comment on the allegations.
Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security also echoed the accusations.
"Russian forces wired explosives into the energy unit of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant," the report said.
"Major General Vasiliev, commander of the garrison stationed at the factory, has announced that he is ready to blow up the factory leading to a nuclear catastrophe."
Meanwhile, A senior Ukrainian government official, Anton Gerashchenko, said this was a "nuclear blackmail against the whole world."
Earlier today, the head of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, called for the ZNPP to become a military free zone.
And he warned that shelling around the factory would risk a "Chernobyl-type nuclear disaster."
Mr Kotin said: it gets much bigger. It is impossible to assess the scale of this catastrophe.
He described the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) response to the situation at the site over the past five months as "sluggish", but said there were signs.
"Now there is a move on their position and they hope this situation will be brought under the control of an international body," he said. He said that soldiers and 50 heavy equipment, including tanks, trucks and armored infantry vehicles, were at the scene.
Russia said the IAEA was prepared to visit the ZNPP.
He sounded alarm bells in the wake of a visit to the Japanese city of Hiroshima on his 77th anniversary from the first atomic bomb attack.
NUCLEAR BLACKMAIL
"We must ask, what have we learned from the mushroom cloud that swells over this city?" he said.
Also British General Richard He Lord Barons is likely to changeUkraine's nuclear warnings if he thinks Putin may be defeated. I warned you.
The decorated commander, retired in 2016, said that Russian doctrine recognizes the use of small nuclear weapons as a means of "coercion." explained that
"This is the first use of nuclear weapons in 77 years, breaking a major taboo, but if the purpose justifies it for the Russian people, it is inconceivable. Not," he said The Sunday Times
Sir Richard said that the West would likely use tactical nuclear weapons if Putin was pushed back. He warned that it is necessary to take into account the fact that
He explained that a nuclear attack by Russia on Ukraine would not use such a massive city-destroying bomb that would completely level parts of London and New York.
114} Russian doctrine calls for smaller weapons for such battlefield use instead - perhaps less powerful than the nuclear weapons dropped by the United States at the end of World War II.Even these relatively "small" sizes.The weapons - Fat Man and Little Boy - killed over 200,000 people, and brought unspeakable horror to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Putin hoped the war would be over in a few days and had suggested that he might launch a blitzkrieg to capture Kyiv.
But , this never happened - and the nearly 164 days of the war remain a bloody, brutal and bitter conflict, entwined with unspeakable atrocities committed by the Russians.
And as we sleep every day, week, month, the shadow of an impending nuclear war looms over Ukraine.
Moscow's war doctrine is believed to condone the use of nuclear weapons as a tactic of intimidation in conventional conflicts, and any use of such weapons must be personally approved by Putin.
While the West continues to support Kyiv with weapons and aid in its fight against Putin , the ongoing conflict puts the world at risk of 141}Not seen since the Cold War in tension
