Ukraine forced to shut down largest nuclear plant due to combat, flooding

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Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency has suspended operations at the nation’s largest nuclear plant due to safety concerns. 

The sixth and final reactor at Ukriane’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has been put into a state of cool shutdown. 

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is already under occupation by Russian forces, and as flooding caused by the Kakhovka dam’s destruction continues to force residents to flee the area, continued operations proved impossible.

The Ukrainian government has assured the public that the flooding caused by the Kakhovka dam’s destruction does not compromise the safety of the nuclear plant’s core.

UKRAINE CLAIMS INTERCEPTED PHONE CALL PROVES RUSSIAN ‘SABOTAGE GROUP’ BLEW UP KAKHOVKA DAM

View of Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant from right bank of Dnipro river. At the moment the left bank of the Dnipro River is occupied by Russian forces including the nuclear plant.  ((Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images))

KREMLIN DENIES FAULT FOR KAKHOVKA DAM COLLAPSE 

Streets are flooded in Kherson, Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 7 after the walls of the Kakhovka dam collapsed. (AP/Libkos)

Violent clashes with Russian forces have broken out in the eastern industrial region of Ukraine, according to the nation’s General Staff. 

Air strikes and artillery shelling has been reported in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. 

UKRAINE LAUNCHES HIGHLY ANTICIPATED COUNTEROFFENSIVE AGAINST RUSSIA WITH WESTERN ARMS 

Water flows over the collapsed Kakhovka dam in Nova Kakhovka, in Russian-occupied Ukraine, on Wednesday, June 7. (AP)

Ukraine claimed Friday that an intercepted phone call between two men talking in Russian proves that a Russian “sabotage group” is behind this week’s destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and dam, which has caused extensive flooding. 

The domestic Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) posted a one-and-a-half-minute clip of the alleged conversation on its Telegram page, according to Reuters. 

Ukrainian security forces transport local residents in a boat during an evacuation from a flooded area in Kherson. (Aleksey Filippov/AFP/Getty Images)

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“They (the Ukrainians) didn’t strike it. That was our sabotage group,” the news agency reports one of the men – described by the SBU as a Russian soldier — saying in the recording. “They wanted to, like, scare (people) with that dam.” 

The authenticity of the recording could not be independently verified. 

Timothy Nerozzi is a writer for Fox News Digital. You can follow him on Twitter @timothynerozzi and can email him at timothy.nerozzi@fox.com