Russian news agencies on Friday night accused Ukraine of “planning a nuclear provocation” at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in southwestern Russia as well as at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine.
A source within Russian law enforcement told state news agency RIA Novosti that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) planned to use “charges with radioactive warheads” to attack the plants, while another source told the agency that the AFU intended to blame Russia for the attack.
RIA Novosti claimed that Western states, “mainly the UK”, were “overseeing” the planned AFU attack on the Kursk and Zaporizhzhia atomic energy facilities, while Russian pro-war blogger Marat Khairullin alleged that the AFU was planning to “strike nuclear fuel storage sites” with a so-called “dirty bomb”, a device that uses conventional explosives to disperse radioactive matter.
This is the 11th time that Russian state media have accused Ukraine of planning a “nuclear provocation” since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, independent media outlet Agentstvo noted on Friday.
Ukrainian officials have denied the reports, accusing Moscow of provoking Kyiv instead. “We are seeing another surge in insane Russian propaganda about alleged Ukrainian plans to use ‘dirty bombs’ or attack nuclear plants,” Heorhii Tykhyi, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, wrote on X. “We officially refute these false claims. Ukraine has no intention or ability to take any such actions. Russia must stop spreading dangerous lies.”
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, suggested Russia was in fact planning a “nuclear provocation” itself, adding that Russia’s previous efforts to accuse Ukraine of nuclear terrorism “did not work”.
Earlier this week Ukraine and Russia accused each other of “terrorism” over a fire that broke out in a cooling tower at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. As a surprise Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory entered its second week, Moscow reported to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it had found fragments of downed missiles around the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, and accused Kyiv of “reckless actions”.
An unnamed Ukrainian official told AFP last week that Ukrainian troops would not “cause problems for nuclear security” in the Kursk region, but did not clarify if occupying the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant was one of the incursion’s objectives, saying only that the AFU would see how the Kursk operation progressed.