UN should accept upsetting facts after Ukraine's spy chief admitted attacks on nuclear plant: Russia

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday that the UN should acknowledge the uncomfortable truth about who attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) after the revelation by Ukraine's intelligence chief.

Commenting on Kyrylo Budanov's interview with the NV media outlet, in which he admitted that special forces from Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence made three attempts to attack and capture the nuclear facility, Zakharova reminded that UN representatives "have been saying for all these months that they cannot determine the direction of the strike on the station."

"Budanov's confession should bring out of hypnotic sleep the population of NATO countries, who were inspired by the NATO regimes that Russia was creating threats to nuclear facilities and threatening to use nuclear weapons," she said.

Zakharova noted that the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said that Kyiv uses the nuclear facility as a "dirty nuclear weapon" and "blackmails the Europeans with it."

"Russia provided data at all specialized sites to confirm the shelling of the NPP by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Everything we have talked about will continue to find direct confirmation," she stressed.

Budanov told NV that in August 2022, Ukraine's special forces crossed the Kakhovka reservoir near the city of Energodar on high-speed boats to create a bridgehead on the left bank for an attempt to seize the NPP, but were forced to retreat.

After that there were two more attempts, he said, and after the third, the Russian army deployed heavy military equipment on the bank of the Dnieper River.