The security situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is “deteriorating” following a drone attack nearby, the UN’s energy watchdog said on Saturday.
Russian troops have occupied the plant since early March 2022, weeks after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The nuclear safety and security risks facing the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant have risen again. I am extremely concerned and call for maximum restraint from all sides and forFive Specific Principles“It was established to protect nuclear power plants,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He said in a statement.
The nuclear plant reported to the IAEA on Saturday that the drone-delivered explosives detonated just outside the plant’s protected area, near the plant’s “essential cooling water sprinkler ponds” and about 100 meters from the Dniprovska power line, the plant’s only remaining source of electricity.
The IAEA said the road between the two main gates was affected but there were no casualties or impacts to the nuclear plant’s equipment.
Russian state news agency TASS reported that officials at the power plant claimed Ukraine had launched the drone attack.
“7 a.m. Moscow time [4:00 a.m. GMT]”Ukrainian drones dropped artillery shells on a road outside the plant’s site that is frequently used by staff. No one was injured, but this again poses a direct threat to the safety of staff and the plant,” the report said.
Ukraine has not officially commented on the drone attack.
Since Russia seized the nuclear plant more than two years ago, Ukrainian leaders have repeatedly warned that Russia’s shutdown could deny civilians access to electricity or, even worse, cause a reactor meltdown.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that Russian forces had set fire to the site and that the situation at the plant was “not normal and cannot become normal” if it remained under Russian control.
“Nuclear power plants are designed to withstand technical or human failures and external events, including extreme ones, but they are not built to withstand a direct military attack, and like other energy facilities in the world, neither should they be,” Grossi said on Sunday.
In 2022, fighting broke out around the plant, raising international alarm and ultimately leading to International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors being stationed at the plant in the fall of that year. In June 2023, Ukraine announced that Russian troops hadWithdrawal from the siteHe accused Moscow of preparing to blow up the nuclear power plant from the inside.
A Ukrainian military counteroffensive in the region in 2023 failed to make significant progress towards liberating the plant, and frontline activity in the area has largely halted since then.
The incident comes as Ukraine advances its military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which President Zelenskiy said on Sunday was aimed at creating a buffer zone to prevent future Moscow attacks across the border. The Associated Press reported.
