Russia’s attack on the largest nuclear power station in Europe should be considered a war crime perpetrated by President Vladimir Putin, the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine has said. A fire broke out at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after it was shelled by Russian forces overnight—though, as of Friday morning, no spike in radiation levels had been detected at the site. In a tweet sent hours after the attack, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv wrote: “It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe's largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further.” It followed the tweet with the hashtag “#TheHague,” referring to the host of the International Criminal Court where war crime trials take place. The U.S. assessment was shared by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, who described the shelling as a “nuclear terror” attack that could have caused “the end of everything. The end of Europe.”
