The Moscow-installed mayor of Energodar, a city in southern Ukraine hosting Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was injured in an explosion on Sunday, a Ukrainian official and Russian news agencies said.
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Andrei Shevtchik was appointed mayor of Energodar following Russian troops took control of this city and of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant located on its territory.
“We have precise confirmation that during the explosion, Shevchik, the self-proclaimed head of the + popular administration +, and his bodyguards were injured”, announced on Telegram Dmytro Orlov, elected mayor of Energodar.
The latter added that they were in the hospital “with injuries of varying severity”, but the circumstances of the explosion remain to be clarified.
There were no other injuries in the blast, he added.
Quoting a source from the emergency services, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti specified that Mr. Shevtchik is in intensive care. The explosion was caused by an “improvised explosive device”, according to the other Russian agency TASS, citing a source in the police force.
A city of nearly 50,000 inhabitants, Energodar was built in the 1970s around the nuclear power plant which is located on the Dnipr river opposite the city of Zaporijjia, held by the Ukrainians.
The plant was the site of confrontation from the first days of the conflict, raising fears of a possible nuclear disaster in a country whose history is marked by the explosion of a reactor in Chernobyl in 1986.
