The head of the United Nations atomic watchdog says he is ready to travel to Chernobyl for talks on safeguarding Ukraine's nuclear facilities.
International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi was speaking after a Russian attack was blamed for starting a fire which Ukraine said damaged a reactor building at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine's south.
Mr Grossi said Ukrainian and Russian officials were considering an offer of a meeting at Chernobyl, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986.
He said he was willing to be there to offer assistance.
Mr Grossi was speaking after Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe's largest nuclear power station, after a fierce battle in which a five-storey building was set on fire.
He confirmed that the building hit was a training centre and "not part of the reactor" and that it was struck by a "projectile" fired by the Russian forces.
"We do not have details about the kind of projectile," Mr Grossi said.
No radioactive material was released, but two people were injured in the fire that broke out at the plant, he added.
"All of the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all and there has been no release of radioactive material," Mr Grossi said.
Mr Grossi said only one reactor of six at Zaporizhzhia was currently operating, at about 60 per cent capacity, and that two people at the site were injured in the fire.
Ukraine’s state nuclear plant operator Energoatom, the state enterprise that runs Ukraine's four nuclear plants, said three Ukrainian soldiers were killed and two wounded.
Earlier, an official at Energoatom said there was no further fighting, the fire was out, radiation was normal and Russian forces were in control.
"Personnel are in their working places, providing normal operation of the station," the official said.
He said his organisation no longer had communication with the plant's managers, control over the radiation situation there or oversight of potentially dangerous nuclear material in its six reactors and about 150 containers of spent fuel.
Russia's defence ministry also said the plant was working normally.
It blamed the fire on a "monstrous attack" by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.
Russian troops took control of the plant soon after the fire was extinguished on Friday morning local time.
Russia has already captured the defunct Chernobyl plant, about 100 kilometres north of Kyiv.
Staff on duty at Chernobyl have not been rotated out since it was seized last week despite repeated appeals by Mr Grossi.
The situation at Zaporizhzhia was similar in that Russia controls it but Ukrainian staff continue to operate it.
"For the time being, it is purely Ukrainian staff running the operations there," Mr Grossi said.
"What we have in this case as we speak … is in Chernobyl and in Zaporizhzhia, we have effective control of the site in the hands of Russian military forces.
"I hope the distinction is clear."
Russia accused of 'blackmailing' the world
An adviser to Ukraine's President accused Russia of "blackmailing" the world with a nuclear catastrophe by deciding to attack the site.
In a statement released on social media, Mr Podolyak said Russia should be held responsible for its actions in attacking the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
"Russia is deliberately blackmailing the world with a nuclear catastrophe," he said.
"Never before has any state tried to blackmail with a massacre under a nuclear power plant while conducting hostilities."
Zaporizhzhia is the biggest nuclear power plant in Europe and accounts for one-quarter of Ukraine's power generation.
The power plant has six Russian-designed reactors. It was first commissioned in 1984, two years before the Chernobyl disaster, and has since been expanded and upgraded.
The plant is situated in Enerhodar, a city on the banks of the Dnieper River, a few hundred kilometres from the Black Sea in south-eastern Ukraine.
The Zaporizhzhia reactors are of a different and safer type compared to the defunct Chernobyl plant, analysts said.
ABC/wires
