Fire near Ukraine nuclear plant put out

Officials said the fire at the Zaporizhzhia compound on Friday was in a training centre and not at the plant itself. An official at Energoatom, the state enterprise that runs Ukraine's four nuclear plants, said there was no further fighting, the fire was out, radiation was normal and Russian forces were in control.

Russia's defence ministry also said the plant was working normally. It blamed the fire on a "monstrous attack" by Ukrainian saboteurs and said its forces were in control.

The prospect that fighting at the plant could cause a potential nuclear disaster had set world financial markets tumbling.

Even with that scenario seemingly averted, Russia's grip on a plant that provides more than one-fifth of Ukraine's electricity was a big development after eight days of war in which other Russian advances have been stalled by fierce resistance.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and other Western officials said there was no indication of elevated radiation levels at the plant.

Earlier, a video from the plant verified by Reuters showed one building aflame, and a volley of incoming shells, before a large incandescent ball lit up the sky, exploding beside a car park and sending smoke billowing across the compound.

"Europeans, please wake up. Tell your politicians - Russian troops are shooting at a nuclear power plant in Ukraine," Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address. In another address later he called on Russians to protest.

He also called on Russians to protests over the attack.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed or wounded and more than one million refugees have fled Ukraine since February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two.

Russian forces advancing from three directions have besieged Ukrainian cities and pounded them with artillery and air strikes. Moscow says its aim is to disarm its neighbour and capture leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies call that a baseless pretext for a war to conquer the country of 44 million people.

Russia had already captured the defunct Chernobyl plant north of Kyiv, which spewed radioactive waste over much of Europe when it melted down in 1986. The Zaporizhzhia plant is a different and safer type.

Loud explosions could be heard in Kyiv on Friday morning and an air raid siren blared. Reuters journalists in the capital were not immediately able to determine the cause of the blasts.

Only one Ukrainian city, the southern port of Kherson, has fallen to Russian forces since the invasion was launched on February 24, but Russian forces continue to surround and attack other cities.

The southeastern port city of Mariupol has been encircled by Russian forces and subjected to intense strikes, Britain said in an intelligence update on Friday.

The northeastern cities of Kharkiv and Chernihiv have been under attack since the start of the invasion, but defenders are holding out.

Kyiv, the capital of three million people, has been shelled but has so far been spared a major assault, with Russia's main attack force stalled for days in a miles-long convoy on a highway to the north. In Washington, a US defence official said Russians were still 25km from Kyiv city centre.

On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine negotiators agreed at peace talks on the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape and to deliver medicines and food to areas of fighting.

In Russia itself, where Putin's main opponents have largely been jailed or driven into exile over the past year, the war has been accompanied by a further crackdown on dissent. Authorities have banned reports that refer to the "special military operation" as a "war" or "invasion". Anti-war demonstrations have been quickly squelched with thousands of arrests.

Australian Associated Press