COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace on Friday said Russia’s Vladimir Putin was playing with fire by attacking a nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southeast and called on him to stop targeting such sites.
Ukraine said Russian military forces had seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Europe’s largest – after attacking it in the early hours of Friday, setting an adjacent five-storey training facility on fire.
“We call upon the Russian president in the strongest possible terms to absolutely cease attacking sites such as that, it is incredibly dangerous,” Wallace told a news conference during a visit to Copenhagen.
“It’s not just dangerous for Ukraine and Russia, it’s dangerous for Europe, and it is playing with fire that really is beyond anything that has to do with logic or necessity.”
(Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Writing by Kylie MacLellan in London; Editing by Kate Holton)