UN warning over ‘suicidal’ f ighting at nuclear plant
THE head of the United Nations has warned fighting around a Ukrainian nuclear plant is ‘suicidal’.
The Zaporizhzhia facility – Europe’s biggest nuclear site – has been turned into a military base by Russia.
Kremlin forces, said to include 500 soldiers armed with explosives and heavy equipment, have launched attacks from the plant, using its nuclear reactor as a ‘shield’.
Speaking on a visit to Hiroshima, Japan on the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, United Nations secretary general Antonio Guterres warned: ‘Any attack [on] a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing.
‘We fully support the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in all their efforts in relation to creating the conditions for stabilisation of the plant.’
Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom has claimed that Russia is ‘openly blackmailing the whole world’ by threatening to blow up the plant.
It claims Russian troops have ‘wired energy units’ of the nuclear plant with explosives.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has also warned of ‘Russian nuclear terror’ and demanded the Kremlin’s nuclear industries are hit by international sanctions.
An unstoppable wind of ‘radioactive contamination’ could spread over Europe if the assault on the Zaporizhzhia plant continues, the Ukrainian president warned in his overnight address on Sunday.
He said: ‘God forbid, if something irreparable happens, no one will stop the wind that will spread the radioactive contamination.’
The IAEA’s director general, Mariano Grossi, has warned there is a ‘very real risk of nuclear disaster’ unless the area surrounding the plant is demilitarised.
His view was echoed yesterday by Petro Kotin, head of Energoatom, who said: ‘The decision we demand from the world community and all our partners is the withdrawal of the invaders and the creation of a demilitarised zone.
‘The presence of peacekeepers and the transfer of control of the station to the Ukrainian side would resolve this problem.
‘If one container of spent nuclear fuel is broken it will be a local accident. If it is two or three containers, it will be much larger. It is impossible to assess the scale of this catastrophe. They use it [the power plant] as a shield against the Ukrainian forces, because nobody from Ukraine is going to kill our people or damage our infrastructure.’
Russia seized the plant in March but Ukrainian technicians are still working there, ‘under the barrels of Russian guns’ according to Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to the IAEA.
He warned that a catastrophic meltdown at the plant would be bigger than Chernobyl, adding that dangerous radiation leaks from the Zaporizhzhia plant might not be detected because the facility had been damaged by Russian attacks.
The Russians were said yesterday to be cutting power lines in Zaporizhzhia, which would leave the local population without electricity.
The Kremlin insisted Kyiv is to blame for recent shelling, accusing Ukraine of ‘taking Europe hostage’.
President Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘We expect the countries that influence the Ukrainian leadership to use this influence to rule out the continuation of such shelling.’
The plant is in the city of Enerhodar in south-east Ukraine on the River Dnipro.
The US yesterday announced a further $1billion in military support for Ukraine, including munitions for long-range weapons and armoured medical transport vehicles.
‘Very real risk of disaster’