A handful of technicians closely monitor a wall of screens and dial in the control room at the Khmelnytsky nuclear plant – a vast facility in western Ukraine that's now vital to Ukraine's energy grid and its war effort.

Ukraine nuclear facilities face Russian attack threats as Moscow weighs strikes on power substations to force capitulation, officials say. Zaporizhzhia is a primary target.

"It is the use of nuclear risk as a tool of coercion," Ukraine's foreign minister said.