The head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation warned on Thursday that an Israeli strike on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant could lead to a “Chernobyl-style disaster.”

An Israeli military spokesman said Israel had struck the site, but an Israeli military official later called the statement a “mistake” and said he could neither confirm nor deny that the Bushehr site on the Gulf coast had been hit.

Bushehr is Iran’s only operational nuclear power plant, built by Russia, Reuters reported.

President Vladimir Putin told reporters early on Thursday that Israel had promised Russia that Russian workers — who are building multiple nuclear facilities at the Bushehr site — would be safe, even as Israel tries to forcibly degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom warned on Thursday that the situation at the plant was fraught with risks.

“If there is a strike on the operational first power unit, it will be a catastrophe comparable to Chernobyl,” state news agency RIA quoted Alexei Likhachev as saying.

Likhachev was referring to the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, when a reactor exploded at Chernobyl in Soviet Ukraine.

An attack on Bushehr would be “more than evil,” Likhachev added.

Russia has evacuated some of its experts from Bushehr, he said, but the core workforce – which Putin said numbered hundreds – remained on site.

“We are prepared for any scenario, including the rapid evacuation of all our employees,” RIA quoted Likhachev as saying.

Photo: AP