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UN Chief Issues Warning as Ukraine Nuclear Plant Shelled Again

UN Chief Issues Warning as Ukraine Nuclear Plant Shelled Again
folder_openEurope... access_timeone year ago
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By Staff, Agencies

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate end to all military activity around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine, as Moscow and Kiev blamed each other for renewed shelling.

Ukraine’s Energoatom agency said the Zaporizhzhia complex was struck five times on Thursday, including near where radioactive materials are stored.

Russian-appointed officials, meanwhile, said Ukraine shelled the plant twice, disrupting a shift changeover, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

In a statement ahead of a UN Security Council meeting called by Russia, Guterres warned that any damage could lead to “catastrophic consequences” in the region and beyond.

“The facility must not be used as part of any military operation. Instead, urgent agreement is needed at a technical level on a safe perimeter of demilitarization to ensure the safety of the area,” he said in a statement.

Meanwhile, UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the military activity around Zaporizhzhia was “very alarming” and called on Ukraine and Russia to immediately allow nuclear experts to assess damage as well as evaluate safety and security at the complex because the situation had “been deteriorating very rapidly.”

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] pointed to shelling and several explosions at Zaporizhzhia last Friday that forced the shutdown of the electrical power transformer and two backup transformers, leading to one of the nuclear reactors being shut down.

He had earlier warned that the situation at Zaporizhzhia, which was seized by Russia in March, soon after the beginning of the military operation on February 24, was getting more perilous every day.

At a Security Council meeting, Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused Kiev of “criminal attacks on nuclear infrastructure … pushing the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.”

He said Ukrainian armed forces had repeatedly used heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems to shell the Zaporizhzhia plant, including on Thursday.

“The background radiation at the nuclear power plant at the moment is within limits, but if the strikes continue it is only a question of time,” Nebenzia said. “We call on states that support the Kiev regime to bring their proxies into check to compel them to immediately and once and for all stop attacks.”

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