The safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine is once again under threat. Occupied since March 2022 by Russia, the Zaporizhia site (ZNPP) suffered a series of drone attacks starting on April 7.
A situation that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) takes very seriously. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident”, alerted Rafael Grossi, the agency’s director general, this Monday, April 15, noting that it was “simply impossible” to know who was responsible for these recent attacks against the plant. Because kyiv and Moscow blame each other.
Zaporizhzhia power plant attacked by drones who can take detours. These “can be obtained virtually anywhere,” he continues. “So the scientific evidence is not there to allow us to say indisputably that it comes from this or that,” he insisted.
The future of the plant can be decided “on a roll of the dice”
But wherever they come from, these “reckless attacks”, the first to directly target Europe’s largest power plant since November 2022, “must stop immediately”he pleaded during a meeting of the UN Security Council dedicated to this issue.
“Well, fortunately they didn’t cause a radiological incident this time, they have greatly increased the risk at the Zaporizhia power plant, where nuclear safety is already compromised“, added the director general of the UN body, which has experts on site.
They also constitute a “dangerous precedent, having successfully reached the containment structure of a reactor”.
“Two years of war weigh heavily onr the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Each of the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear security and safety have been compromised. We cannot stand by and wait for a final weight to tip the balance into an unstable balance,” he argued.
He also called for “a roll of the dice not to decide what happens tomorrow.” Even though the plant’s six reactors are shut down, “the potential dangers of a major nuclear accident remain very real”.
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