The move was connected to Ukraine’s counter-offensive and its attempt to liberate the Zaporizhzhia region. Sherban said Vladimir Putin was trying to use the nuclear plant for blackmail. I think they do it whenever they’ve had a good meal.” It can happen any time of the day: morning or night. “Their bombing is completely unpredictable. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen, or what they are capable of doing. Outside Nikopol’s shrapnel-pitted palace of culture, pensioner Oleksandr Sherban described the Russians as “idiots”. Oleksandr Sherban, a resident from Nikopol, outside the distribution centre in the palace of culture. The Russians are so close that there is no warning when a strike might occur or where a projectile will land. On 26 June two civilians were killed and one injured. Soldiers based in the plant and in the next-door village of Vodiane shell the town most days or hit it with Grad missiles. In addition to a growing nuclear threat, Nikopol has for the past year come under regular Russian bombardment. It briefly reappeared in domestic taps, only to stop flowing half an hour later. The town was delivering water in fire trucks, and distributing it free of charge. Levels at the reservoir continued to fall. Russia’s reckless sabotage of the dam left 200,000 people in the district without drinking water, he added.
“An explosion would be a catastrophe for the Black Sea region, for Europe and humanity,” he stressed. If we can get rid of them the problems will go as well.” Thus far, the response from EU nations and the US to the developing crisis was unimpressive and “lethargic”. The safety issues with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant only started when they showed up.
Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The GuardianĪsked what the west might do to mitigate the situation, he answered wryly: “Make the Russians disappear. Yevhen Yevtushenko, head of the district military administration in Nikopol.