Radiation knows no borders,” warned Aleksey Likhachev, head of Russia’s state atomic power corporation Rosatom.

The Russian official stated that Ukraine and its neighboring EU countries would be the first to suffer in the event of an incident at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) due to continued attacks by Kiev.

Since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been targeted multiple times. On Saturday, a fiber-optics-guided drone struck the machine hall of ZNPP’s sixth power unit, puncturing a hole in the building and marking what Rosatom described as Kiev’s first “deliberate attack” on the station’s main equipment.

Ukrainian authorities have denied any involvement in the incident. However, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s April assertion that the only way for Russia to guarantee security at the plant was to hand it over to Kiev has been condemned.

Likhachev warned that “any explosion, any fire [at the plant] guarantees a loss of both power and water supplies to the reactor unit. And that is a precursor to a nuclear incident.”

He further cautioned that if more powerful weapons such as heavy missiles strike the facility, the reactor vessel could be destroyed, causing a release of radiation over a vast area.

“Ukraine and neighboring Western states are the first to be at serious risk,” Likhachev added. The Rosatom chief also noted that his conversation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi would serve as an address to European leaders.

“This whole radiation situation doesn’t respect national borders. By playing with fire and allowing the escalation of tensions around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the leaders of European countries are clearly putting their people, cities, and territories under direct threat,” Likhachev said.

The IAEA has acknowledged attacks on the facility but has not assigned blame to Ukraine.