Ukraine Nuclear Plant Out Of Control – UN

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the United Nations’ nuclear agency has said that a huge nuclear power plant occupied by Russia during its invasion of Ukraine is “completely out of control.”

Rafael Grossi was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying the Zaporizhzhia plant needed an inspection and repairs.

“You have a catalogue of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility,” he said.

Europe’s biggest nuclear plant is dangerously close to the fighting.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia earlier this week of using the plant, which it overran in March, as a military base to launch attacks on Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian officials have said Russians station troops and store military hardware on the grounds of the power station on the Dnipro river in the south of Ukraine.

But a Russian-installed official in the region told Reuters news agency that Ukrainian forces were using Western-supplied weapons to attack the plant.

Yevgeny Balitsky said officials were ready to show Grossi’s agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), how Russians were guarding the nuclear facility while Ukrainians were allegedly attacking it.

When Russia seized the plant, its shelling of buildings there caused an international outcry.

The plant is still operating, with Ukrainian staff under Russian control.

At a news conference at the UN headquarters in New York, Grossi said: “The situation is very fragile. Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated one way or the other and we cannot allow that to continue.”

The IAEA’s director-general said he was trying to put together a mission as soon as possible to visit the plant but this required the approval of both the Ukrainian and Russian sides, as well as UN authorisation, given the risks involved in visiting the war zone.