Energy Agency warns of nuclear accident in occupied power plant

Russian soldier in front of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant

Ukrainian personnel continue to work in the plant.

(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Riga The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned of a nuclear accident at Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. The situation in Europe’s largest nuclear facility is “completely out of control,” said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi. He appealed to Russia and Ukraine to allow experts access to prevent a nuclear incident.

The power plant is located near the town of Enerhodar on the Dnieper River. About 50 kilometers northeast of it is the eponymous city of Zaporizhia. The facility has been occupied by Russian troops since early March.

After that, the power plant continued to be operated by Ukrainian personnel, but monitored by Russian nuclear specialists, in what Grossi described to the AP news agency as a “paradoxical situation”.

“All the principles of nuclear safety have been violated in one way or another,” Grossi said at a press conference at United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday evening. Among other things, the supply chain for equipment and spare parts has been interrupted, says Grossi, “so we are unsure whether the plant will get everything it needs”. In addition, the IAEA must carry out important inspections.

Top jobs of the day

Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.

To reach the facility, he and his team would need protection and urgent cooperation from Russia and Ukraine. “The IAEA will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant by its presence,” said Rafael Grossi.

Most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed deep concern. According to Blinken, there are credible reports that Russia is using the Zaporizhia facility as a kind of protective shield, shooting at Ukrainian forces from near the facility. The Ukrainians, in turn, could not return fire because it could lead to a nuclear accident.

With six reactors and a total output of 5,700 megawatts, the plant is the most powerful nuclear power plant in Europe and makes a significant contribution to Ukraine’s energy supply. The first reactor block was commissioned in 1984.

Zaporizhia nuclear power plant

The plant has a total output of 5700 megawatts.

(Photo: imago images / Ukrinform)

There are currently four nuclear power plants in operation in Ukraine: in addition to Zaporizhia, these are the plants in Khmelnytskyi 280 kilometers west of Kyiv, Rivne in the north-west of the country and the southern Ukraine nuclear power plant in the Mykolaiv Oblast (administrative district). Research reactors are also located in Kyiv and Kharkiv.

On Tuesday, Ukraine reported heavy fighting near Bakhmut in the east of the country. According to information from Kyiv, Ukrainian positions were attacked by Russian artillery along the entire front, in addition to the Zaporizhia region, the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions.

Security measures are secret

According to the German Federal Office for the Safety of Nuclear Waste Management, it is the responsibility of the respective state in which a nuclear power plant is located to take measures against targeted attacks on nuclear facilities.

These measures are subject to confidentiality. In principle, precautions against willful damage “guarantee a certain level of protection in the event of war,” says the authority on its website.

>>Read here: Nuclear power plants in Ukraine: what are the dangers of the war?

However, “neither a state nor an operator of a nuclear facility could provide or guarantee complete protection against any conceivable attack with weapons of war by the army of another state”.

According to the authority’s website, there has never been a precedent in which “a state using nuclear energy was exposed to a comprehensive war of aggression by another state” in the course of the civilian use of nuclear energy. Therefore, the possible consequences are also “not realistically assessable”.

More: Nuclear Weapons Conference: The new fear of the bomb

source site-11