The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned yesterday, Saturday, that the threat to its Russian-held nuclear plant Zaporizhia is still “serious” and added that the Russia is “technically ready” to detonate the facility.

Zelensky cited the Ukrainian Intelligence Service as the source of this information.

“There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to cause a local explosion at the plant, which may lead to the release of radioactivity,” the Ukrainian president said during a press conference he gave together with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who was yesterday in Kiev.

Zelensky did not provide further details. Ukraine’s military intelligence service has previously indicated that Russian troops have planted mines at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

At the same time, the Ukrainian president asked the international community to pay more attention to the nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, and called for sanctions to be imposed on the Russian state atomic energy company Rosatom.

Zelensky then met with Ukraine’s military leadership and atomic energy agency officials at another of the country’s five nuclear plants, in Rivne, in the northwest.

“The main issues we discussed were the security of our northern provinces and measures to strengthen them,” Zelensky noted in his standard night video, speaking in front of the factory in Rivne.

It was a rare visit by Zelensky to this region, which is far from the war front. However, Rivne is close to the border with Belarus, where Wagner mercenaries have agreed to go after their failed mutiny attempt last weekend.

Meanwhile, Energoatom, Ukraine’s atomic energy agency, announced on Friday that it had completed a two-day exercise simulating the effects of an attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear plant.

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia issued a statement calling Ukraine’s claims “simply absurd”. Moscow has rejected accusations that it plans to attack the Zaporizhia plant.