Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, proposed on Saturday to mediate the dispute over a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which has raised concerns of an atomic catastrophe.
The offer was made just hours before the international watchdog for atomic energy reported that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine had lost access to its final main power line and was now reliant on a backup line.
Concern over the shelling near Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear plant, has grown recently.
On Friday, Ukraine bombed the nearby town of Energodar, which led to the destruction of three artillery systems and an ammunition storage facility.
According to the Turkish presidency, Erdogan reminded his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday that "Turkey can play a facilitator role in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility, as they did in the grain agreement."
One of the biggest exporters of grains in the world, Ukraine, was forced to cease practically all shipments after Russia invaded in late February, sparking concerns about a potential world food catastrophe.
Following the signing of a deal between Kyiv and Moscow in July, grain exports between Black Sea ports were resumed with the backing of the United Nations and Turkey.
There was no mention of Erdogan's Saturday phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which he offered to mediate.
When Erdogan visited Lviv to meet with the Ukrainian president last month, he issued a nuclear disaster warning.
A reference to the worst nuclear accident ever, which occurred in another area of Ukraine in 1986 while it was still a part of the Soviet Union, the Turkish leader said he wished to prevent "another Chernobyl."
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 14-person delegation visited Zaporizhzhia this week, and its head Rafael Grossi claimed that fighting had damaged the site.
"Gas weapon" –
The Ukrainian ZNPP (Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant) "has once again lost the connection to its last remaining main external power line, but the facility is still able to send electricity to the grid through a reserve line,"
Millions of people have fled their homes as a result of the Russian invasion of pro-Western Ukraine, which has claimed thousands of lives.
In an effort to stop the Russian advance, Western powers have responded by sending military assistance to Kyiv and imposing economic penalties on Moscow.
The main industrial democracies of the Group of Seven made a commitment on Friday to act quickly to impose a price restriction on Russian oil imports, a critical source of income for Moscow.
As if on cue, Russian gas giant Gazprom said that gas deliveries to Germany have been suspended indefinitely due to turbine leakage. That was not a good enough justification, according to its German maker, to stop the flow of gas.
However, EU Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni stated on Saturday that because of storage capacity and energy-saving efforts, the European Union was better prepared to manage the potential of a complete halt in Russian gas exports.
He told reporters outside of an economic gathering, "We are well prepared to counter Russia's excessive deployment of the gas weapon."
Gentiloni claims that despite the fact that conditions vary from country to country, the European Union's "gas storage is currently at about 80%, thanks to the diversification of supplies."
Russia is allegedly keeping ammunition at Zaporizhzhia and stationing hundreds of soldiers there, according to Ukraine.
Additionally, it believes Moscow plans to send power from the facility to the nearby Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
