Ukraine: The mayor appointed by Moscow was injured in a bomb blast

The mayor of Moscow, located in the southern Ukrainian city of Energod, which runs Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, was injured in an explosion Sunday, a Ukrainian official and Russian news agencies reported.

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Andrei Shevtsik was appointed mayor of Energod after Russian troops took control of the city and the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant on its territory.

“We have a definite confirmation that during the explosion, the self-proclaimed leader of the popular administration + Shevsik and his bodyguards were injured,” said Telegram Dimitrov Orlov, who was elected mayor of Enercode.

The latter added that they were hospitalized with “injuries of varying severity”, but the circumstances of the explosion needed to be clarified.

He said there were no other injuries in the blast.

Citing the source of the emergency services, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, Mr. Shevchik noted that he was in intensive care. According to another Russian company, TASS, the bomber struck shortly after noon in front of a police station, citing police sources.

A city of about 50,000 people, Enercode was built in the 1970s around a nuclear power plant on the Dnieper River opposite the city of Zaporizhia, run by the Ukrainians.

The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in 1986 raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe in a country marked by history, and the plant had been the site of conflict since the early days of the conflict.