US Embassy: Russian attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant ‘is a war crime’

The United States Embassy in Ukraine on Friday called the Russian attack on the Ukrainian nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia a “war crime.”

“It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further,” wrote the embassy, responding to the attack that broke out into fire Friday. The fire has since been extinguished.

Russian forces took control of the power plant shortly after the strikes. The fire is believed to have been ignited by the strike of a Russian projectile, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The six reactors at the nuclear power plant have enough energy to power 4 million homes. They were reported as undamaged in the strike, and international monitors said they did not detect any increased spike in radiation, according to a report by CBS News.

“We survived a night that could have stopped the story, the history of Ukraine, the history of Europe,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, according to CBS News.

Any potential explosion at Zaporizhzhia would have been equal to “six Chernobyls,” Zelensky said, referring to the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which occurred in 1986, notes CBS.

Following the attack, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations council and, CBS reports, Johnson slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “reckless actions” that “could now directly threaten the safety of all of Europe.”