Such a withdrawal would represent a significant change in the battlefield in the partially held Zaporizhia region, where the frontline has barely moved in months. Continued shelling near the station sparks fears of a nuclear disaster.
The head of Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear power company stated today that they exist indications that Russian forces may be preparing to withdraw from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which they seized in March, days after the invasion.
Such a withdrawal would represent a significant change in the battlefield in the partially held Zaporizhia region, where the frontline has barely moved in months. Continued shelling near the station sparks fears of a nuclear disaster.
“In recent weeks we have been receiving information that there have been indications that (the Russians) are possibly preparing to leave” the station, Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, told state television.
“First, there are a very large number of reports in the Russian media that it would be worth it they might evacuate (the station) and maybe hand over its control to” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said, referring to that UN agency. “One gets the impression that they are gathering and stealing everything they can,” he added.
Russia and Ukraine they accuse each other for months over the bombing of the nuclear plant, which no longer produces power.
When asked if it is too early to talk about the Russians leaving the plant, Kotin said: “It is too early. We don’t see it happening now, but they are preparing’ to leave. “All (Ukrainian) personnel are prohibited from passing through the checkpoints and into ‘territories’ controlled by Ukraine,” he added.
The head of the IAEA met on November 23 in Istanbul with a Russian delegation to discuss the establishment of a protection zone around the nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, to avoid a nuclear disaster. Before the war, Zaporizhia produced about a fifth of the electricity consumed by Ukraine.
After the Istanbul meeting, Russia’s RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that a decision on the buffer zone would be made “quite quickly”.
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