Ukraine urged the international community to take seriously its warning that Russia might be preparing an attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, calling for steps to be taken to protect the facility.
“Our principle is simple: the world must know what the occupier is preparing. And everyone must act,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday, warning of the risks of a “radioactive catastrophe.”
That day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had said that the military situation around the nuclear plant was “increasingly tense.” Although the last of the plant’s six reactors was shut down last fall to reduce the risk of a meltdown, several experts warned that this could still happen if the cooling system for the reactor core and spent nuclear fuel lose power.
During several months of fighting, Russia and Ukraine traded accusations over which side was contributing to the risks of increasing the possibility of the most catastrophic scenarios.
This Friday, the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, met with the head of the Russian state nuclear agency, Rosatom, in Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave in the Baltic, to discuss the conditions of the plant.
Rosatom director Alexey Likachev asked the UN agency for concrete measures to prevent the nuclear power plant from being affected by the fighting. Also this Friday, the governor of Zaporizhia, Yuriy Malashko, reported that a Russian bombardment in the southern province had killed two people the day before, demonstrating the risks of the proximity of the conflict in relation to the central one.
Source: TSF
