Ukraine wants other countries to heed its warning that Russia may be planning to attack an occupied nuclear power plant to cause a radiation disaster, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Members of his government briefed international representatives on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
In his nightly address, Mr Zelensky said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow. “Our principle is simple: The world must know what the occupier is preparing. Everyone who knows must act,” Mr Zelensky said. “The world has enough power to prevent any radiation incidents, let alone a radiation catastrophe.”
The Kremlin’s spokesman has denied the threat to the plant is coming from Russian forces. The potential for a life-threatening release of radiation has been a concern since Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year and seized the plant, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power station.
The head of the UN’s atomic energy agency spent months unsuccessfully trying to negotiate for a safety perimeter to protect the facility as nearby areas came under repeated shelling. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) noted on Thursday that the “the military situation has become increasingly tense” while a Ukrainian counter-offensive that got under way this month unfolds in the province of Zaporizhzhia, where the namesake plant is located, and in an adjacent part of Donetsk.
Although the last of the plant’s six reactors was shut down last autumn to reduce the risk of a meltdown, experts have warned that a radiation release could still happen if the system that keeps the reactors’ cores and spent nuclear fuel cool loses power or water. During months of fighting, Russia and Ukraine have traded blame over which side was increasing the threat to the plant.
On Friday, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi met the director of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom to discuss the conditions at the plant. Rosatom director Alexey Likachev and other officials at the meeting “emphasised that they now expect specific steps” from the UN agency to prevent Ukrainian attacks on the plant and its adjacent territory, said a statement from the Russian corporation, whose divisions build and operate nuclear power plants.
Earlier this week, Ukrainian officials accused Russia of mining the plant’s cooling system, already under threat from a dam collapse that drew down water in a reservoir that the power station uses.
