MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday its forces had defused unexploded U.S.-supplied munitions fired by Ukraine that were shot down just 5 km (3 miles) from Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant, which Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of trying to strike.
The announcement was made by Russia’s National Guard and accompanied by a video of the unexploded munitions and of sappers blowing them up. It came a day after Rafael Grossi, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, inspected the plant, which he said was vulnerable due to a lack of a protective dome that could shield it from missiles, drones or artillery.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the purported Russian find, and Reuters could not independently verify the location of the video.
Ukrainian forces punched through Russia’s western border into the Kursk region on Aug. 6 in a surprise incursion which is still ongoing, and fighting has taken place within about 40 km (25 miles) of the nuclear facility.
Ukraine has yet to respond to an accusation last week by Russian President Vladimir Putin that it tried to attack the plant. Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, declined to spell out on Tuesday whether he held Ukraine responsible or not.
Rosgvardiya, Russia’s National Guard, said in a statement that its sappers had found a shell from a U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple launch rocket system 5 km from the power plant, and a rocket fragment which it said was stuffed with 180 unexploded munitions.
A video it published of the find showed two soldiers inspecting fragments of the rocket which they said had been shot down by Russian air defences and had partially exploded in the air.
One of the fragments they inspected was marked “M101 GRENADES.” They were shown piling the munitions up in a hole in the ground and blowing them up in a controlled explosion.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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