Russia heads to Ukraine’s 2nd largest nuclear facility: US ambassador to UN

Russian soldiers are closing in on Ukraine’s second-largest nuclear facility, according to US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who spoke at the UN on Friday.

“Russian forces are now 20 miles, and closing, from Ukraine’s second-largest nuclear facility,” she claimed, declining to name the plant.

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According to Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power plant oversight authority, the Yuzhnoukrainsk Nuclear Electricity Station in the Mykolaiv Oblast, in southern Ukraine, is the country’s second-largest nuclear facility in terms of power output capacity.

“President Putin must stop this humanitarian catastrophe by ending this war and ceasing these unconscionable attacks against the people of Ukraine,” she added.

The impending risk, according to Thomas-Greenfield, remains after a disaster was “narrowly avoided” last night, referring to the fire that broke out at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine early Friday local time as a result of Russian forces bombarding the facility.

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“The international community must be unanimous in demanding Russia’s forces stop their dangerous assault. And as I’ve said before, the people of Ukraine are counting on us and we must not let them down,” she said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier accused Russia of “nuclear terror” when Russian troops assaulted a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine.

In a statement issued by the Elysee Palace earlier on Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that he is “extremely concerned” about the “risks to nuclear safety, security and the implementation of international safeguards that result from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Macron went on to say that France, along with its foreign partners, has requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the topic.

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According to Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby, there has been “no leakage of radioactive material” from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which was assaulted by Russian forces.

Kirby stated that the Pentagon cannot comment on “what operational status” the power plant is currently in or whether Russians have control of the plant.