The UN nuclear watchdog said Thursday that Europe's largest atomic power plant was continuing to receive water from a reservoir after a dam was damaged, refuting the dam operator's assertion that the reservoir could no longer supply water.

"Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is continuing to pump cooling water from the Kakhovka reservoir," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a statement.

A Russian serviceman guards in an area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, May 1, 2022. (Photo: AP)