Threat to Ukraine Nuclear Plant Increases as Fighting Rages

Russia, trying to pin down Ukraine’s forces to blunt a counteroffensive in Kherson, has been firing shells from near a nuclear plants it occupies.

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine — The main front in Russia’s military onslaught on Ukraine appears to have shifted dangerously to the south of the country, risking a catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and setting up a possible make-or-break struggle for an important regional capital seized by Russia at the start of its invasion.

Initially focused on the north around the capital, Kyiv, and then turning into a brutal slugfest in the east involving months of artillery duels that cost thousands of lives on both sides, the war has entered a new and, each side hopes, decisive phase.

With fighting raging around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station and the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, around 60 miles down the Dnipro River from the nuclear plant, the south is now where both Russia and Ukraine are focusing their firepower — and their hopes of avoiding a stalemate that could drag on for years

Over the weekend, Russia used territory around the nuclear power station, which it seized from Ukraine in March, as a staging ground for attacks on Ukrainian positions. It unleashed a barrage of howitzer fire on the nearby Ukrainian-held town of Nikopol, local officials said.

The intensifying battles around the power plant, which have sent residents in the area fleeing and stirred alarm of a radiation risk far beyond Ukraine, came as Russian forces in Kherson faced encirclement by the Ukrainian military.

The precarious position of the Russian troops in Kherson, who were largely cut off from their main source of supplies after Ukraine wrecked the last of four bridges across the Dnipro, has led to speculation about their fate.

Some reports on Saturday said Russian commanders had already retreated from the city. A regional legislator, Serhiy Khlan, told Ukrainian television on Sunday that Russia is moving its Kherson command center across the Dnipro to more secure territory on the eastern bank.

Senior Ukrainian military sources, however, said they had seen no evidence that Russian commanders were retreating. Analysts warned that Ukrainian politicians have an interest in exaggerating Russia’s troubles to rally morale and demoralize Russian troops.

But Russian forces in Kherson clearly face difficulties now that their supply lines  have been compromised. And Mr. Khlan said the only way they could now reach territory securely held by Russia on the east side of the Dnipro, was to use pontoon bridges or to cross by foot, without their equipment, across badly damaged bridges