Ukraine accuses Russia of shelling from captured nuclear plant

President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Moscow for seeking to cause maximum damage, but pledged that Ukraine will "endure" in the conflict

Ukraine's atomic energy agency accused Russia of using Europe's largest nuclear power plant to store weapons and shell the surrounding regions of Nikopol and Dnipro that were hit on July 16.

More than 20 weeks since Russia invaded its neighbor, leading to thousands of deaths and millions of displaced Ukrainians, the war-ravaged nation's President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Moscow for seeking to cause maximum damage, but pledged that Ukraine will "endure" in the conflict.

Petro Kotin, president of Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom, called the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant "extremely tense" with up to 500 Russian soldiers controlling the plant.

The plant in southeast Ukraine has been under Russian control since the early weeks of Moscow's invasion, though it is still operated by Ukrainian staff.

"The occupiers bring their machinery there, including missile systems, from which they already shell the other side of the river Dnipro and the territory of Nikopol," he said in a Ukrainian television interview broadcast Friday.

Russian missiles fired Saturday struck residential buildings in the city of Nikopol, killing two people, Dnipro regional governor Valentin Reznichenko said.

In the northeast region around Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, governor Oleg Synegubov said an overnight Russian missile attack killed three in the town of Chuguiv.