Rafael Grossi is worried. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident” in Zaporozhye, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on Monday about this Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
The Zaporozhye site, occupied since March 2022 by Russia in southern Ukraine, suffered a series of drone attacks from April 7, with Moscow and kyiv blaming each other for responsibility.
“Reckless attacks”
Asked about the origin of these recent attacks, Rafael Grossi assured that “in this case, it is simply impossible” to identify the country responsible. The reason ? The attacks were carried out by drones that can detour and that the drones in question “can be obtained virtually anywhere.” “So the scientific evidence is not there to allow us to say indisputably that it comes from this or that,” he insisted.
Wherever they come from, these “reckless attacks”, the first to directly target the largest power plant in Europe since November 2022, “must stop immediately”, he pleaded during a meeting of the Council of Europe. UN Security Council dedicated to this issue. “Although fortunately they did not cause a radiological incident this time, they greatly increased the risk at the Zaporozhye plant, where nuclear safety is already compromised,” added the director general of the authority. UN agency, which has experts on site. They also constitute a “dangerous precedent, having successfully reached the containment structure of a reactor”.
OUR FILE ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE
“Two years of war weigh heavily on the safety of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Each of the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear security and safety has been compromised. We cannot stand by and do nothing while waiting for a final weight to tip the balance into an unstable balance,” he pleaded. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident,” he insisted, calling for “a roll of the dice not to decide what will happen tomorrow.” Even if the plant’s six reactors are shut down, “the potential dangers of a major nuclear accident remain very real.”