Russia and Ukraine blame each other for Friday's artillery shelling of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, Zaporizhzhya, in Enerhodar, southern Ukraine, which forced the shutdown of one of the reactors.

Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine's nuclear power authority Energoatom, is now demanding that the nuclear power plant be made a protected zone, Reuters reports.

He suggests that peacekeeping forces be deployed at the facility and warns that a disaster similar to the Chernobyl accident in 1986 risks occurring if the shelling continues.

According to lieutenant colonel Joakim Paasikivi, there is currently great uncertainty about what is actually happening around the nuclear power plant.

- There are reports that the Russians have mined it and other reports that they prepared it for detonation.

But it's hard to know what's right and why you would blow up a nuclear power plant seems strange to me, he says to SVT.

- But I don't think we would face an immediate nuclear disaster, adds Paasikivi.

Russia controls the area

Russian forces occupied the nuclear power plant in early March.

According to Kotin, the area is being monitored by 500 Russian soldiers with about 50 military vehicles, including tanks, trucks and armored infantry vehicles.

However, the facility is still operated by Ukrainian technicians, writes Reuters.

Petro Kotin points to the risk of containers with spent fuel being hit by shelling as a particular safety hazard.

"If a container with spent nuclear fuel breaks, it would cause an accident that affects the facility and the surrounding area.

If two or three containers break, the consequences are much greater.

It is impossible to assess the scale of such a disaster, he says.

Requires independent inspection

The UN's atomic energy agency IAEA has emphasized that there is a "very tangible risk of a nuclear disaster", but that there is no information about damage to the reactors or the release of radioactive substances after the shelling.

However, the IAEA has not been allowed to make an independent assessment of the nuclear power plant's status on site.

António Guterres, the UN director-general, demanded on Monday that international inspectors be given access to the nuclear power plant.

- Every attack on a nuclear power plant is a suicide case, he said at a press conference in Japan on Monday.