UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has voiced concerns over a potential disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear power station, after Russia accused Ukrainian forces of shelling the plant in the country’s southern Zaporozhye Region on Friday.

Kiev claims that Moscow – which holds the area – is using the facility as a “shield” for its soldiers.

“Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing. I hope that those attacks will end, and at the same time I hope that the IAEA will be able to access the plant,” Guterres said at a press conference in Tokyo on Monday morning, without blaming either side.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Saturday it was “extremely concerned” by the Friday shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. Targeting the facility with any “military firepower” amounts to “playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences,” the UN nuclear watchdog’s director general, Rafael Grossi, said.