MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine on Thursday of trying to strike Russia’s Kursk nuclear power station in an overnight attack.
He provided no documentary evidence to back up his assertion and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Here are some details about the plant.
- The Kursk plant is one of Russia’s top nuclear power stations. It supplies about half of the electricity used in the Black Earth region of southern Russia.
- It is located on the Seym River near the town of Kurchatov, named after Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, in Russia’s western region of Kursk. Ukrainian forces launched a cross-border incursion in the Kursk region on Aug. 6.
- The plant has four Soviet graphite-moderated RBMK-1000 reactors – the same design as those at the Chernobyl nuclear plant which in 1986, when part of the Soviet Union, became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
- Reactor Number 1, which dates from 1976, was shut down at the Kursk plant in 2021 to operate in non-generation mode. Reactor Number 2, which dates from 1979, was shut down in 2024. Reactor Number 3, from 1983, and Reactor Number 4, from 1985, are both operational.
- Construction of Kursk-2, essentially new reactors of the VVER-TOI type, was begun in 2018. The two reactors are not operational yet.
