Vladimir Putin is threatening a “nuclear catastrophe” as Russia continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and continue to fight near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, it has been claimed.

Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said on Telegram: “It is a deliberate decision by the Putin regime to threaten the world with nuclear catastrophe.”

This comes after Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed it has attacked electricity substations in nine Ukrainian regions and gas compressor stations in three regions.

Ukraine launched a shock incursion into the Russian region of Kursk earlier this month, taking control of a number of Russian settlements. Fighting is now taking place near a power plant in the region, sparking concerns about security among experts.

The four reactors at Kurks’s plant are designed in the same way as those that formed the Chernobyl plant before reactor four exploded in 1986.

On Tuesday, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said during a visit to the plant in western Russia that there is a “danger or possibility of a nuclear accident” that could cause “serious consequences.”

He added: “We see the plant still operating, but at the same time, the fact that the plant is operating may get even more serious in terms of an eventual action against it.

“When a plant is operating, the temperature is much higher, and if there was the case of an impact or something that could affect it, there would be serious consequences.”

Mr Grossi continued: “This makes it extremely exposed and fragile, for example, to an artillery impact or a drone or a missile.

“So this is why we believe that a nuclear power plant of this type, so close to a point of contact or a military front, is an extremely serious fact that we take very seriously. Basically – never, ever, must or should a nuclear power plant be attacked in any way.”

Similar fears were expressed over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia plant after Russia invaded and occupied the region in 2022.

Earlier this month, Ukraine claimed that a fire at the plant was started by the Russian military.

Yevhen Yevtushenko, the head of the military administration in Nikopol, claimed the Russians set fire to “a large number of automobile tyres in cooling towers.”

He added: “Perhaps this is a provocation or an attempt to create panic in the settlements on the right bank of the former reservoir.”