Video Shows Ukrainian Nuclear Plant Workers Pleading With Russians To Stop Shooting

Video taken from inside Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during the Russian assault earlier this week shows workers pleading with their attackers over a loudspeaker system to stop in order to avoid catastrophe.

“Stop firing at the nuclear facility!” someone says, according to a translation from The New York Times , which says it verified the clip’s authenticity.

The message is punctuated by gunfire.

“You are endangering the safety of the entire world,” the person says multiple times.

The videographer pans around a room featuring floor-to-ceiling control panels and other computer equipment.

CNN also aired the clip during a Friday-evening broadcast, with live translation by reporter Sam Kiley. The power plant worker said that if a certain part of the facility’s operations were disrupted, staff would not be able to restore it, per Kiley.

A fire that broke out near the Zaporizhzhia plant Europe’s largest nuclear site was ultimately contained on Friday.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, Dmytro Kuleba, had highlighted the stakes , saying that “if it blows up,” the resulting disaster would be “10 times larger” than the meltdown at Chernobyl in 1986.

The Zaporizhzhia plant is designed with more modern protections than the Chernobyl site, with more safety measures to ward off a similar meltdown. But experts have expressed concern about the potential catastrophe of any military activity around nuclear plants.