A total of 1,679 civilians, including 660 children, were hurriedly evacuated from areas around nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia -Europe’s largest-, said an official stationed by Russia in the parts of the Ukrainian region of the same name controlled by Moscow’s forces late last Sunday night.

On Saturday, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), part of the UN system, warned that the situation around the plant was becoming “potentially dangerous” as Moscow-installed authorities in Zaporizhia began to rush evacuations. people.

Ukraine’s military is expected to launch its much-discussed counteroffensive soon to retake territory seized by Russian forces, including in Zaporizhia.

Yevgeny Balitsky, the governor who installed the Kremlin in the parts of the district controlled by Russian troops, explained via Telegram that the people who were hastily evacuated were taken “to a temporary accommodation center for residents of front-line areas, in Berdyansk,” which it also belongs to the Zaporizhia region.

Berdyansk (southeast), a Ukrainian port on the Sea of ​​Azov, was captured by the Russian military twenty-four hours after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.