The Russian army has deployed rocket launchers at the facilities of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia (south), which has been under Russian control since the beginning of March, with which it is pounding mainly the Nikopol region, the head of Energoatom, the Ukrainian commission, announced yesterday Friday atomic energy.
“The Russian occupation forces have installed missile launch systems at the site of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant and are hitting the Nikopol region from there,” Petro Kotin, the president of Energoatom, said via Telegram, while also giving a television interview to Ukrainian television station on the subject.
“The situation (at the factory) is extremely tense and the tension is increasing every day, the occupation forces have brought machinery, including rocket launchers with which they have already hit the other bank of the Dnieper River and the territory of Nikopolis,” 80 kilometers southwest of Zaporizhia, he added.
According to Mr. Kotin, up to 500 Russian military personnel are at the facility, “controlling” it.
“Heavy equipment (tanks, armored vehicles) of the occupation forces and trucks full of weapons and explosives continue to be stationed at the facility,” Mr Kotin insisted, calling pressure to leave “inadequate” and criticizing the International Atomic Energy Agency of Energy (IAEA) of the UN.
The IAEA is “playing political games, oscillating between Russia and Ukraine,” he said, adding that “the IAEA is full of employees from Russia,” that its number roughly reaches a hundred, and that “even the first deputy director general of IAEA Rafael Grossi is from Russia”. “Perhaps that accounts for his ‘reserved’ position,” he quipped.
According to the IAEA’s website, Mr. Grossi has six deputy directors, including Mikhail Chudakov, a Russian who took over in 2015. The agency employs 2,500 people from more than a hundred countries.
Mr. Grossi insisted on Thursday, according to a press release issued by his services, the “importance” it has for the IAEA that its officials go to the station in Zaporizhia to carry out work “necessary for the security and protection of largest nuclear power plant of Ukraine”. Its workers have not been able to go there since the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory began on February 24.
Ukrainian authorities have opposed any such visit, as they believe it would legitimize Russian occupation of the facility in the eyes of the international community, as Energoatom argued a few weeks ago.
The factory in Zaporizhia has been seized by the Russian military but continues to be operated by Ukrainian personnel. According to the IAEA, the situation is “extremely difficult” due to “constant pressure on staff”.
Mr Grossi reiterated his “increasing concern” about the conditions faced by workers and the “impact of these conditions on the safety of the station”.
The plant in Zaporizhia contributed in 2021 20% of the annual Ukrainian energy production and 47% of that produced by nuclear power plants.
Source: Capital
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