MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The Russian Defense Ministry is considering the shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant by Ukrainian forces to be an act of nuclear terrorism under a UN convention adopted by a resolution of the UN General Assembly, the head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, who also leads Russia's humanitarian response coordination headquarters, said on Saturday.
"Under the international convention adopted by the resolution of the UN General Assembly of April 13, 2005, we consider these criminal actions of the Ukrainian authorities to be an act of nuclear terrorism," Mizintsev told a briefing.
The defense official said that a possible accident at the NPP would surpass the scale of the Chornobyl and Fukushima disasters, adding that the entire territory of Ukraine, the Donetsk and Lugansk people's republics, as well as Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Bulgaria, and Romania would be engulfed by nuclear contamination.
He urged the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other international organizations to condemn these actions on the part of Ukraine's military and to take immediate measures to prevent provocations at the Ukrainian nuclear facilities.