Russia captured Europe's largest nuclear power plant on Friday in Ukraine, prompting questions about the reasons it invaded the reactor site as well as the health risks to Ukrainians fighting desperately for their lives and freedom.
It is not the only power plant that could be attacked by Russian forces. A Ukrainian energy official said that some troops appeared to be moving toward another facility west of the Zaporizhzhia power plant.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex appears to be safe for now, with the plant's array of sensitive detectors finding no releases of radioactivity above the background levels.
The site, located on the Dnieper River, hosts six nuclear reactor with their cores full of highly radioactive fuel and many acres of open ponds of water where spent fuel rods are submerged to cool off. If a fire broke out, experts fear that a shell or missile could cause an environmental disaster and cause clouds of radioactive particles to fly around Europe.
David Albright is a physicist and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington.
Ukrainians and people in other countries could be in danger from an accident of that nature.
The acting president of the state company said that only God knows where the cloud of nuclear isotopes will go.
There was a threat of that kind during Friday's assault on the facilities.
The minister of energy in Ukraine gave an address in which he praised the city.
The Ukrainian military unit 3042, which guards the complex, was listed on the website as being in combat readiness.
There was a fire after the Russian forces broke through, but it was contained to a training facility on the perimeter of the complex. The No. 1 reactor was hit by a Russian shell, but its thick walls gave it strength to survive.
The complex was able to function safely as of 6 a.m. on Friday, according to international observers and Ukrainian officials. The Russian forces have allowed the nuclear plant's operations to continue at a normal pace since they took over.
The personnel are working normally in the unit, if we can say so.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Friday that three of the site's six reactor had been shut down.
The Russian forces did not include nuclear energy specialists from Russia, only soldiers who were not familiar with the operations of a complex power facility. The Russians allowed one shift of workers to be replaced in order to keep the plant operating safely.
Olena Pareniuk, a nuclear safety expert at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, said that the most dangerous thing for the plant is when people don't go on rotation. It's important for people to rest and not be stressed to avoid mistakes at the nuclear plant.
The thousands of Ukrainians who work at Zaporizhzhia would be put under strain if they lived under military occupation. The humanitarian crisis in Enerhodar was cut off from food and other supplies. Russian soldiers were taking food from the shops. The city was working to get back to normal.
Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist who advised the Clinton administration and now teaches at Princeton, said it could be a repeat of the 1979 reactor meltdowns.
According to an estimate by Mr. Albright and two colleagues, the spent fuel rods at Zaporizhzhia contain up to 30 tons of plutonium. If swallowed or breathed in, plutonium can cause death by cancer.
Mr. Grossi said that the main priority at this point was to ensure the safety and security of the plant, its power supply and the people who run it.
Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, challenged the account that Russian troops attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex. Russian forces patrolling outside of the nuclear plant came under fire from Ukrainians inside a training building and returned fire, he said. He said the Ukrainians set the building on fire.
According to the I.A.E.A., Ukraine gets more than half of its electricity from its 15 reactor. Nuclear power in the United States contributes 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
Russian gains in the south. After taking control of Kherson and cutting off the city of Mariupol, Russian forces advanced deeper into southern Ukraine, descending on the port of Mykolaiv, just 60 miles from the largest city in the south.
In comparison, the Chernobyl plant in northern Ukraine produced 3,800 megawatts when it was running at full power.
The slow degradation of the power grid in Ukranian could be a consequence of the Russian takeover of the Zaporizhzhia complex. Moscow might use its takeover as a way to shut down the Ukrainian power grid.
R. Scott Kemp, a professor of nuclear science at M.I.T., said that the Russians understand that energy is a massive tool of power.
The whole country can lose its clean water, the pumping of gas, the refrigeration of food and the electrical power needed for the military and the government if there is an intentional change in the power output of the Zaporizhzhia complex. It is a serious vulnerability.
The South Ukrainian nuclear power plant is one of the nuclear power facilities in Ukraine.
The plant in the city of Yuzhnoukrainisk produces less power than Zaporizhzhia. Russian troops were about 20 miles from the South Ukrainian plant, but were already fighting with Ukrainian forces on the way to it.
The purpose of the Russian military occupying the nuclear stations is to warn the Ukrainians that they will be cut off from electrical power if they do not acquiesce to the invasion.
Nuclear weapons manufacture is a darker possibility.
Mr. Grossi of the I.A.E.A. said that his agency's oversight of the nation showed that the nuclear program was peaceful. Russia may be motivated to seize Ukraine's nuclear energy plants in part to gather atomic material for itself or to close off an unlikely and difficult path for Kyiv to acquire a nuclear weapon.
One of the main fuels used in atom bombs is plutonium. Mr. Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security said that the spent fuel at the Zaporizhzhia plant could yield fuel for up to 3,000 warheads.
During the Cold War, the United States conducted studies and tests that showed plutonium was usable. In 1962, it successfully tested a nuclear bomb made out of plutonium.
Experts fear that the Ukrainians could one day learn the dark art of bomb making from the Russians, as they have done with plutonium reactor bomb material throughout the nuclear age. It would require a major failing of the I.A.E.A., which is focused on ensuring that no operator of a peaceful nuclear plant anywhere on the planet seeks to covertly extract plutonium from spent fuel for nuclear arms.
William J. Broad reported from New York. The reporting was contributed by Maria Varenikova, Farnaz Fassihi, and others.
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