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Ukraine nuclear plant incident ‘would take deliberate act’ [1]
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Date: 2023-07
An accident at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would be “almost impossible” and any damage would be a deliberate act by Russian forces, Ukrainian nuclear personnel have told openDemocracy.
Russia has occupied the plant, in the city of Enerhodar, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. Its forces are currently preparing to damage the occupied plant, Ukrainian officials claim, in order to stop Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the country’s southeast.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Sunday that Russia has “approved the scenario of mining” the Zaporizhzhia plant (ZNPP). Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, in turn, asserted that the Russian military has mined four out of six reactors, by allegedly placing vehicles rigged with explosives next to them.
“The situation has never been as severe as now,” Budanov emphasised.
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But while Ukraine has sounded the alarm over ZNPP, the US – one of the country’s main allies – has been more cautious.
Speaking on Monday, US National Security spokesperson John Kirby said he hasn't “seen any indication that that threat [of blowing up the ZNPP] is imminent”, noting that the US is monitoring radio signals in the vicinity of the nuclear plant.
The Ukrainian authorities have not clarified how exactly Russia is preparing to cause damage to the plant and at what scale, with Zelenskyi only mentioning that Russian forces could cause a “radiation leak”.
Ukrainian nuclear energy specialists told openDemocracy that Russia turning the ZNPP into a military base is a gross violation and a danger in itself that may lead to irreversible radioactive damage. They say as work at the plant is stabilised, to damage it one needs to know what they’re doing.
“It is almost impossible [to cause damage] without the [Russian forces] following a plan,” says Pasha Oleshchuk, who worked as a staff engineer at Rivne Nuclear Power Plant in northwest Ukraine.
On 22 June, Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Russian president Vladimir Putin, called Zelenskyi’s claims “another lie”.
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[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant-russia-ukraine-incident/
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