The situation at the Zaporijia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, worsened again this Monday (8). Russian troops occupying the site in southeastern Ukraine accused Kiev of attacking the Soviet-era complex overnight, damaging power lines.
The two warring countries have exchanged daily accusations about attacks on the plant, and international organizations have already expressed concern about a potential incident. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said after the latest episode that any action against a nuclear plant is a suicide attack.
The Portuguese, who was speaking in Japan, where he is about to mark the 77th anniversary of the nuclear bomb attack on Hiroshima, once again asked that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), led by Argentine Rafael Grossi, may have access to ZaporÃjia to assess the situation.
Ukraine has denied carrying out the attack and has called for peacekeepers to be deployed to Zaporijia – which, despite being occupied by Russian troops, is still operated by Ukrainian officials – and for a demilitarized zone to be formed around the plant.
“We urge all our partners to remove invaders from the plant’s territory,” said Petro Kotin, head of Energoatom, the state-owned nuclear energy company. “The presence of peacekeepers in this zone and the resumption of control for the Ukrainian side would solve the problem.”
Kotin said the main danger was a projectile hitting containers of highly radioactive nuclear fuel and said that if that happened, it would be impossible to assess the scale of the catastrophe.
The situation is worrying, among other factors, due to the regional history of nuclear accidents. It was in Soviet Ukraine that the accident at the Chernobyl power plant in 1986 relegated consequences for decades.
Moscow also says it recognizes the “extremely dangerous” potential – in the words of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov – of attacks on Zaporijia. He urged journalists to play a role in the West. “We hope that countries that have influence over Ukraine will use this to make them stop the bombings,” he said.
The plant was taken by Russian troops on March 4, a few days after the invasion began. The conquest came after an attack started a fire in the place. The plant’s management denied that there was a risk of nuclear contamination, but the episode was marked by widespread disinformation, echoed even by Ukrainian authorities.
Built between 1985 and 1989, ZaporÃjia is the largest complex of its kind in Europe. It has six VVER-type reactors, models considered safer than the RMBK used in Chernobyl, but it is not designed to receive shots or bombs. About 25% of the country’s energy comes from there.
Recently, the US accused Russia of using the plant as a kind of nuclear shield, in order to prevent Ukrainian soldiers from responding to attacks for fear of a high-risk accident.
On Monday, the leader appointed by Moscow to lead the occupation in the Zaporijia region, Yevgeni Balitsky, signed a decree to organize a referendum on annexation to Russia, the RIA news agency reported.
“Based on the principle of free choice, we declare our intention to hold a referendum on entry into the Russian Federation; we are one people and we will stand together,” reads a statement quoted by the agency.
