The Ukrainian government denied having been behind a wave of recent attacks on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and has instead accused Russia, despite the fact that the plant, which is the largest in Europe, has been occupied precisely by Russian troops since the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began almost six months ago. The Ukrainian Interior Minister went so far as to say that the Russian Army fired tanks at the plant’s reactors last night.
Russia denied the accusation and reiterated that it has not deployed heavy weapons at the plant, which according to Ukraine it does have there and uses to attack nearby Ukrainian cities and military positions.
How to avoid fears expressed by the UN nuclear watchdog (IAEA) of a nuclear accident due to attacks on the nuclear power plant Zaporizhia is one of the issues that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, I was scheduled to talk today with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, during a visit to Ukraine, his spokesman said.
Guterres, the United States and NATO want Russia to allow an inspection of the plant by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose director general is the Argentine Rafael Grossi.
Closure of the nuclear power plant
Speaking to reporters in Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said today that Russia may close the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant if Ukrainian bombing continues.
The spokesman, lieutenant general Igor Konashenkov, told reporters that Russia was going to take “all necessary measures to ensure the safety of the Zaporizhia NPP”including its closure in case the attacks continue, the Russian news agency Interfax reported.
For his part, the head of Russia’s radioactive, chemical and biological defense forces, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, denounced that Ukrainian artillery units plan to fire on the plant tomorrow and then accuse Russia of causing a nuclear accident.
Kirillov said that this plan was part of “a noisy provocation” Ukraine is preparing in Zaporizhia to coincide with Guterres’ visit to Ukraine.
Kirillov added that one of the plant’s security systems had been damaged as a result of the attacks and warned that in the event of a nuclear accident, radioactive material would cover all of Germany, Poland and Slovakia.
accusations
Since the end of July, Russia and Ukraine hold each other responsible for several recent bombings on the nuclear power plantwhich have raised fears of a catastrophe.
Ukraine accuses Russia of storing heavy weapons at the plant and using it as a firing platform on its Army positions, but Moscow denies this.
The Russian troops seized the power station in early Marchshortly after beginning its invasion of Ukraine, on February 24.
In order to guarantee the security of the place and allow an inspection mission, Guterres and the United States last week proposed establishing a demilitarized zone around the plant.
Ukraine said today that Russia attacked the plant again last night, this time with tanks that fired on reactors.
One of those bombardments hit a radioactive storage building and another caused the automatic shutdown of a reactor, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said.
“No one could have foreseen that Russian troops would fire on nuclear reactors with tanks. It was unprecedented,” Monastyrsky said during a visit to the capital Zaporizhia, 50 kilometers from the plant.
Source: Ambito
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