MELITOPOL, August 17. /TASS/. Russian air defenses managed to significantly reduce the number of hundreds of Ukrainian UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) targeting Energodar daily, local Mayor Maxim Pukhov announced on Monday.

"A launch is recorded every day from the right bank of the Dnieper River, the number of drones is up to a hundred in our direction," he stated.

"But recently, measures worked out by the military have yielded results," Pukhov continued.

"Statistics show us that the number of intercepted drones, the number of UAVs that did not reach their targets, has increased significantly in the past couple of months," he added.

The mayor added that the above-mentioned measures helped to ease tensions around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Energodar.

The Zaporozhye NPP is located on the shores of the Kakhovka Reservoir in Energodar. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, with six power units capable of producing a combined 6 GW of electricity.

Since 2022, the Ukrainian forces have been shelling both residential areas of Energodar and the plant's grounds with artillery and drone strikes. Since September 2022, experts from the IAEA mission have been permanently stationed at the plant. Their composition is regularly rotated.