The Zaporizhzhia power plant in southeast Ukraine was occupied by Russia early in its invasion. Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the attacks on the plant last week.

"The world should not forget about Chernobyl and should remember that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP) is the biggest in Europe. The Chernobyl disaster was an explosion of one reactor. Zaporizhzhia NPP has six reactors," Zelensky said.

The Chernobyl power station in Soviet Ukraine was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986.

"New sanctions are necessary against the terrorist state and the whole Russian nuclear industry for creating the threat of nuclear catastrophe," he said in his nightly address.