U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have discussed the situation around Ukraine’s nuclear plant and called for restraint around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya plant.
In a statement on Sunday, the White House said the four leaders spoke by phone and called for a “quick visit” to the nuclear site by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“They also discussed the situation at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, including the need to avoid military operations near the plant and the importance of an IAEA visit as soon as feasible to ascertain the state of safety systems,” the White House said.
The leaders also affirmed their continued support for Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russian aggression.
The four leaders’ call came as Ukrainian officials reported the shelling of Nikopol, a city near Zaprozhzhia, overnight.
A flare-up in fighting around the nuclear power station, with both sides blaming each other for attacks, has raised the spectre of a disaster worse than in Chernobyl.
The world’s worst nuclear disaster took place in 1986, about 110km (68 miles) north of the capital Kyiv, when an explosion at the plant’s fourth reactor sent clouds of radiation billowing across much of Europe.
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