Over the river from a Russian-occupied nuclear plant, a Ukrainian town fears a spill

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine's Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhia region, is seen through barbed wire on the embankment in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, central Ukraine, on July 20. Russian soldiers have been shelling Nikopol from the premises of the nuclear power plant. (Dmytro Smolyenko/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

NIKOPOL, Ukraine — The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station sits a few miles across the river from this friendly, no-frills city of steel-pipe factories in south-central Ukraine. Tamara Korolkova, a 70-year-old grandmother, can see the plant's panorama on the horizon from the apartment building where she's lived for decades.

She used to admire its symbolism of a powerful independent Ukraine.