A Russian missile hits less than 900 feet from nuclear reactors.

[maestrob]

KYIV, Ukraine — A powerful Russian missile exploded less than 900 feet from the reactors at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant just after midnight on Monday, Ukrainian officials said, narrowly avoiding a possible nuclear calamity and underscoring the threat posed by the Kremlin’s assaults on critical infrastructure across Ukraine.

There was no damage to essential safety equipment at the nuclear power plant, which remained fully operational, Ukraine’s national nuclear energy company, Energoatom, said. No casualties were immediately reported.

But the explosion caused extensive damage around a hydroelectric power station in the industrial zone that surrounds the nuclear complex. It forced the shutdown of one of the plant’s hydraulic units and caused partial power outages in the area.

Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, told Ukrainian national television that while the heavily fortified concrete buildings that house nuclear reactors are built to withstand a plane crash, the blast from Monday’s strike was powerful enough to have damaged the containment structures had the missile struck closer.

“There is no other way to characterize this except for nuclear terrorism,” he said.

The extent of the damage was still being investigated, officials said, as was the type of missile used.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a statement that the strike had caused a brief disconnection of three power lines at the nuclear plant but that they were automatically reconnected. All of the plant’s reactors were now operating normally, he added, but warned: “A few hundred meters and we would have woken up in a completely different reality.”

The South Ukraine plant, Ukraine’s second-largest functioning nuclear power station, is some 300 miles west of the larger Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces and has come under repeated shelling.

Energoatom, said on Monday that “the Russian army launched a missile attack on the industrial zone of the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant” at 12:20 a.m., causing “a powerful explosion” whose shock wave blew out more than 100 windows at the nuclear plant. The company released security camera footage that showed a massive fireball lighting up the night sky over the site.

The nuclear plant, near the city of Yuzhnoukrainsk in the Mykolaiv region, is part of the South Ukrainian Energy Complex, which includes the hydroelectric plant and one other power station. It lies more than 100 miles north of the city of Mykolaiv and far from any frontline fighting.

Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.

— Marc Santora

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/09/19 ... russia-war