KYIV: Ukraine's nuclear power provider on Saturday accused Russia of 'kidnapping' the head of Europe's largest nuclear power plant, a facility now occupied by Moscow's troops and located in a region of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved to annex illegally.

Russian forces seized Ihor Murashov, the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, at about 4 p.m. on Friday (9 p.m. in Manila), according to Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom. That was just hours after Putin, in a sharp escalation of his war, signed treaties to absorb Moscow-controlled Ukrainian territory into Russia.