Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Agency earlier warned of further Russian ‘provocations’ around the plant while the exiled mayor of the town where the plant is located said it had suffered new Russian bombardments.
But the Russian-installed local official, Vladimir Rogov, wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were shelling the plant.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak accused Russia of “hitting the part of the nuclear power plant where the energy that supplies southern Ukraine is generated”.
“The goal is to disconnect us from (the factory) and blame the Ukrainian military for this,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter.
The Defense Intelligence Agency said Russian troops parked a Pion self-propelled howitzer outside the nearby town and affixed a Ukrainian flag to it.
The agency also said that Thursday’s strikes on the territory of the plant, which Ukraine says damaged water pumping infrastructure and a fire station, were carried out from the village of Vodiane under Russian control, about 7 km east of the plant.