Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking and damaging the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant this Sunday after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) denounced an offensive with drones against the infrastructure, which has been under Russian control since the beginning of the current conflict. The Ukrainian authorities have denied having carried out any military operation against the plant.
The IAEA reported on Sunday that a drone attack had damaged Europe’s largest atomic plant. According to the UN agency, this is “a serious incident with the potential to undermine the integrity of the reactor containment system.”
In a statement published on the social network X indicates, however, that the damage “has not compromised nuclear safety.”
In any case, the containment structure of the main reactor was hit by three direct impacts, specified Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA. As a result of the attack, one person died, he said. “These reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident and must stop immediately,” Grossi urged.
Russia, for its part, accuses Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism” and calls for the international community to get involved.
“The international community has the duty to understand and respond to the act of nuclear terrorism by the Kyiv regime,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova wrote in X. And she called for a reaction from the heads of the United States, France and Germany: Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron, as well as Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Moscow maintains that the Ukrainian military used kamikaze drones in its attack. One of them fell in the dining area of ??the facility. A truck delivering food was damaged. The second fell near the loading port. Later there was an attack on the dome of the plant’s sixth power unit. The Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom reported three station employees injured, one of them seriously, and said in a statement that the drone attack against the plant was “unprecedented.”
Ukraine denies these accusations and maintains that it has not carried out any military operations against the nuclear plant. “Ukraine is not involved in any armed provocation on the premises of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant illegally occupied by Russia,” spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) Andri Yusov told Ukrainska Pravda on Sunday evening.
Following the IAEA statement, Yusov accused Russia of carrying out “simulated” attacks on the plant, of deploying troops and military material there and of having mined the plant’s facilities.
According to him, it is the presence of Russian troops that puts “the nuclear infrastructure, the civilian population” and Europe as a whole in danger. And he demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is located near the city of Energodar, on the shore of the Kakhovka reservoir, and has six nuclear reactors. It is the largest nuclear plant in Europe by capacity and the third largest in the world. Since the beginning of hostilities in Ukraine, it has been under the control of the Russian military, and after Moscow proclaimed the annexation of the Ukrainian province of Zaporizhia to Russia in September 2022, it was transferred to the property of the Russian state.
Kyiv and Moscow have repeatedly accused each other of bombing it. IAEA experts constantly monitor the facilities for the risk of war-related incidents that could lead to a nuclear accident.
