Europe’s largest nuclear power plant went offline DAYS after Putin’s missile attack on Ukraine and is at risk of a meltdown

After being fired upon by Russian troops, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant suffered a power outage.

It is feared that the outage at the Zaporizhia site could trigger a radiation leak.

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Ukraine’s state-owned power generation company Energoatom said the outage was due to Russian shelling of an external power line overnight.

The Dniprovska power line in Ukraine provides power for the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, now controlled by Moscow.

To avert a catastrophe, diesel generators were soon switched on in the plant.

But the fuel supply is only enough for ten days – and the external power supply is essential to supply the pumps in the power plants with the cooling of the core material.

If the external power supply is not restored within this period, it “could endanger the nuclear and radiation safety of the whole world,” reports the Ukrainian site 7dniv.

It came just weeks after Vladimir Putin sparked a “maniac panic” when he ordered the mass evacuation of a town near the power plant.

The United Nations nuclear regulatory agency warned of a “major nuclear accident” after Moscow ordered the evacuation of 18 towns and villages near the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, where most workers live.

Ukrainian officials said there was a five-hour wait as thousands of cars fled the area after Putin’s orders sparked a “insane panic” over an impending nuclear disaster.

The latest outage at the plant came when Russian forces fired missiles at Ukraine overnight.

At least eight people were injured and dozens of buildings damaged in the airstrike in nearby Dnipropetrovsk.

Ukraine said its air defense systems destroyed 20 drones and four cruise missiles.

The country’s air force said on Telegram: “The Russian invaders attacked military and infrastructure facilities of Ukraine’s eastern outpost – the city of Dnipro.”

“The attack was carried out by 16 different missile types and 20 Shahed-136/131 attack drones.”

This comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted Ukrainian troops are still fighting, while Russia continues to claim it has taken control of Bakhmut.

The bloody eight-month struggle with Putin’s forces and the Wagner Group’s private army has left the bombed city in ruins.

Although Zelenskyy had previously apparently confirmed that the Russians were now in control of the city, he later told a press conference at the G7 summit in Japan that the city was “unoccupied”.

However, he admitted that the city was “completely devastated” – and compared the scenes to the aftermath of the atomic bombs that the US dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.

Fighting around the eastern city, once home to 70,000 people, has been among the fiercest since the Russians invaded last February.