Ukrainian mayor armed with grenades warns Putin: ‘We’re ready to defend ourselves’

THE mayor of a town in the shadow of a nuclear power plant set ablaze by Russian forces held a grenade in each hand last night and vowed: “We are ready to defend ourselves.”

Gennady Brokovik banged the grenades on his desk and added: “We have to defend our children.”

He spoke as smoke billowed over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — the largest in Europe — after Russian troops seized control in a ferocious all-night battle.

The Sun reached the banks of the Dniepr river alongside the plant hours after Russian troops fought their way in.

And Mayor Brokovik revealed that he had triggered emergency plans to cope with a possible meltdown when he heard the news of the battle at dawn.

The mayor added: “We are handing out anti-radiation tablets, iodine tablets.”

It came amid dire warnings from Ukraine’s foreign minister that if it blows up, it will be a disaster ten times large than Chernobyl.

Chernobyl was the scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986.

At least 50 people were killed and thousands more suffered radiation sickness after a blast at the power station.

It led to authorities creating a 1,600-mile exclusion zone.

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Officials claimed a reactor at the Zaporizhzhia plant was hit with a Russian shell but it easily withstood the impact without significant damage.

A training college on the site was engulfed in an inferno.

Officials insisted that radiation levels were normal yesterday.

When The Sun reached the banks of the Dniepr, a soldier said his comrades had set barricades of tyres on fire to slow the Russians’ overnight advance.

He said: “There were three bouts of fighting, which lasted around 40 minutes each.”

Firefighters were blocked from reaching the inferno and allowed in only at dawn.

Ukraine’s nuclear power authority said: “Russian soldiers fired shots at the nuclear power plant, as a result of which a fire broke out on its territory.

“The fire was extinguished as of 6.20am by Ukraine’s state emergency service.”

It said there was damage to one of the plant’s six reactors but insisted the “systems and elements important for the safety of the nuclear power plant are in working order”.

ANTI-RADIATION TABLETS

Mayor Brokovik said there were plans to evacuate Marhanets, his town of 50,000 people just five miles away from the plant, if the situation deteriorated.

But he warned that an evacuation was now impossible because the country was fighting a war for its survival.

Mayor Brokovik said: “We will never be able to evacuate everyone when there is a war on.

“We never thought this would happen. We don’t know what the Russians will do next.

“We are all well aware of what happened at Chernobyl. We are all aware that there was fighting at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant overnight.

“That is why we are handing out anti-radiation tablets.”

The Sun saw dozens of residents queuing to collect their tablets from a storeroom in the town hall.

“Half a tablet once a day,” Mayor Brokovik said. “It protects the thyroid gland from radiation.”

Local councillor Valeninta Arantseva said: “Radiation is scary but not as scary as being bombed.”

She said her daughter and her two grandchildren live next to the power station and had been cowering through the battle.

'READY TO DEFEND'

Valeninta said: “They slept on mattresses on the floor last night — the fighting last night was scary, very scary.

“The Russians control the town. They’re very, very afraid. They are staying inside and not going out.

“I told them to try and get to where the ferries used to go from to get over to this side but they are too scared to move.”

Clutching her packet of iodine tablets, she added: “You’re meant to take half a tablet within two hours of something happening, then the other half later on.”

The town hall was packed with emergency food supplies and home-made camouflage netting to conceal the Dad’s Army-style checkpoints that have sprung up across the country.

Soldiers, police and civil volunteers are manning thousands of checkpoints across the country, covering roads with concrete blocks to slow any Russian advance.

Mayor Brokovik also revealed a Kalashnikov-style rifle that he kept behind his desk.

Before he said goodbye he took me into a private room and pulled out a shopping bag from underneath a bed.

Inside were three more grenades.

He said: “Whatever happens, we know all of our residents are ready to defend themselves.”