Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused the Russian army, which has controlled Zaporijia since early March, of using the Ukrainian nuclear plant as a nuclear weapon, creating “the greatest danger in Europe”.
“They occupied our nuclear plant. The biggest in Europe. That means six times Chernobyl,” Zelensky said, referring to the 1986 nuclear accident in Ukraine, in an interview with the US network ABC News.
This “means the greatest danger in Europe (…), it means that [Russian forces] use nuclear weapons,” said the Ukrainian head of state.
Zelensky argued that “there should be no military equipment on the territory. There should be no plant workers surrounded by people with firearms.”
Russia and Ukraine have been accusing each other for weeks of carrying out attacks on the Zaporijia nuclear power plant.
On Sunday, Russia accused Ukraine of having tried to attack the territory of Zaporijia with eight drones on Saturday.
Also on Sunday, the independent online newspaper The Insider, specializing in investigative journalism, ‘fact check’ and political analysis, based in the city of Riga, Latvia, published a video about the Russian attacks that took place on the night of 2 to 3 September from the territory of the nuclear power plant.
The video shows that Russia has missile launch systems located at various points situated in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant.
On Friday, Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russia had removed all military equipment from the nuclear power plant, ahead of inspection by experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Zelensky told ABC News that he is not considering a controlled shutdown of the plant to prevent radiation leakage due to the country’s dependence on this energy infrastructure, especially during winter.
“I know that the Russians would like the reactors to be disconnected from the Ukrainian grid to connect them to the Russian grid, but we do not agree with these ideas,” said the head of state.
The Zaporijia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian forces, “has again lost its connection” with the electricity grid, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced in a statement on Saturday, whose experts are at the scene.
The last line still in operation “has been damaged”, the IAEA explained, noting that the other three had been “previously lost during the conflict”.
Already on August 25, the exchange was completely disconnected from the Ukrainian network for the first time, before the connection was re-established.
AFP stresses that the situation in Zaporijia worries many international leaders, given that the area has been the target of several bombings, raising fears of a nuclear disaster.
On Thursday, after an inspection of the facilities, the director of the IAEA said that the “physical integrity” of the factory had been “violated on several occasions”, stressing that this “cannot continue to happen”.
However, Rafael Grossi did not name those responsible for the situation.
