Ukraine’s Zelensky demands no-fly zone after nuclear plant hit

By AP 4 March 2022, 12:27 pm

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a press conference in Kyiv, on March 3, 2022. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants a no-fly zone to be imposed over his country in the wake of the Russian shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant.

The attack on the Zaporizhzhia plant did not produce elevated radiation levels, but Zelensky evokes the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion and fire to raise alarm about further attacks.

The plant “could be like six Chernobyls. The Russian tanks knew what they were shelling … This is terror on an unprecedented level,” he says.

Any attempt by European air forces to impose a no-fly zone would likely severely escalate the conflict.

Zelensky also calls on Russian civilians to express outrage about the plant attack. “Radiation does not know where the Russian border is,” he says.