A nuclear risk in Zaporizhia? The plant, located in eastern Ukraine, 300 kilometers south of Kharkiv, and placed under Russian control, came under further attack on Friday. As a precaution, one of the reactors was shut down the next day. The building has been at the center of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia for several months, with each side accusing each other of being responsible for the shootings.
A new “act of terror” according to Zelensky
On Friday, new military activities were carried out around the Zaporizhia power plant. According to the Ukrainian atomic energy company (Energoatom), the shelling “severely damaged” a station containing nitrogen and oxygen and an “auxiliary building”.
“There are still risks of leaking hydrogen and radioactive substances, and the risk of fire is also high,” the company said on Telegram.
These attacks were strongly condemned in the night from Friday to Saturday by Volodymyr Zelensky, seeing them as a “shameless crime” and an “act of terror”, carried out, according to him, by Moscow forces. “Russia must take responsibility for the very fact of creating a threat to a nuclear power plant,” he said.
First shots just 9 days after the start of the conflict
The strikes that occurred on Friday are not the first. In early March, shelling targeted the building, causing a fire, nine days after the start of the conflict. Incredible images, revealed by the New York Times, showed the attack from inside the building. “Stop shooting”, we can hear a voice launch from one of the installation’s loudspeakers.
At the beginning of June, the director of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, confirmed the passage of a missile at low altitude over the plant, denouncing an “extremely dangerous act”. He assures at the time that this is the fourth incident of this type since the beginning of the conflict.
An “increasingly alarming” situation
These shots have aroused the concern of many international actors for several months, while the plant contains hydrogen and radioactive substances, posing a risk of nuclear disaster whose consequences would go far beyond the borders of Ukraine.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba has warned of the potentially disastrous risks posed by shootings, “equivalent the use of an atomic bomb”, while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) denounced a “worrying” situation at the end of April. Then, on Saturday night, after the last shots, it ruled that it now seemed “increasingly most alarming.”
The European Union (EU) also deplored this Saturday the “irresponsible violation” of nuclear safety standards, after the shootings, and condemned what, according to them, constitutes a “new example of Russia’s disregard for international standards.”
Ukraine and Russia blame each other
After the attacks, Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday accused the Russian army of having attacked “twice the nuclear power plant in Zaporijjia”. However, the accusation is rejected by Russia, which speaks for its part of the artillery fire of the Kyiv forces.
On July 21, Russia had already accused the Ukrainian forces of having attacked the territory of this nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, with a drone.
In mid-July, Energoatom also accused Russia of having deployed missile launchers at the Ukrainian power plant site to fire, in particular, in the Nikopol and Dnipro regions.
A site under Russian control
If Ukraine accuses Russia of being the perpetrator of the shootings, this questioning raises questions.
“The site is occupied by the Russians and it is not very clear why they would have fired in the area,” asks Michel Goya, defense consultant for BFMTV.
In fact, Moscow forces took control of the plant in early March, while the Ukrainian energy company “still controls and operates it,” according to the expert.
The IAEA must carry out an expert mission to the site to decide, even if so far it has always been rejected by Kyiv for fear that the findings legitimize the Russian occupation of the site. “I will continue to push and push again so that this IAEA mission can be carried out,” however, its president assured this Saturday, determined.
Source: BFM TV
