Ukraine accuses Russia of deliberately targeting Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant with missiles

Ukrainian authorities have again accused Russian forces of launching missile attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russia has today, Sunday, August 7, again been accused by Enerhoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned nuclear energy company, of launching missile attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant located in the city of Enerhodar, according to dailymail.co.uk.

The facility is the largest one of its kind in Europe, and was allegedly already hit by missiles last Friday, August 5. Enerhoatom has warned that there is ‘a very real risk of a nuclear disaster’, and called for sanctions against Moscow for conducting ‘nuclear terror’.

Both sides have been blaming each other for the missile attacks that have occurred at the plant in southern Ukraine over the last few days. The allegations being made by Kyiv and Moscow have not yet been verified by independent sources.

Zaporizhzhia has been under the control of Russian troops since late March, but it continues to be operated on a daily basis by its Ukrainian workforce.

‘Russian occupiers once again fired rockets at the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the town of Enerhodar, damaging three radiation sensors at the facility’, claimed Enerhoatom in a statement. ‘One employee was hospitalised with shrapnel wounds caused by the explosion’, it added.

According to the state-owned company, the dry-storage facility that was hit contained a total of 174 spent nuclear fuel containers. ‘Consequently, timely detection and response in the event of a deterioration in the radiation situation or leakage of radiation from containers of spent nuclear fuel are not yet possible’, Enerhodar continued.

Posting in his official Twitter profile @ZelenskyyUa, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy tweeted, ‘Russian nuclear terror requires a stronger response from the international community – sanctions on the Russian nuclear industry and nuclear fuel’.

Поговорив з @eucopresident Шарлем Мішелем, розповів про ситуацію на полі бою, зокрема на Запорізькій АЕС. Російський ядерний терор вимагає рішучішої відповіді від міжнародної спільноти – санкцій на російську атомну галузь і ядерне паливо. (1/2)

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 7, 2022

According to a report from Russian state-run news agency TASS, they cited Russian troops as claiming that overnight, the Ukrainian military ‘carried out a strike with a cluster bomb fired from an Uragan multiple rocket launcher’.

‘The projectiles fell within 400 metres of a working reactor. The strike damaged some administrative buildings and fell in a zone storing used nuclear fuel’, they added.

A report by Rafael Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on Saturday, August 6, of the very serious risk of a nuclear disaster. ‘Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences’, he stated.

In a statement today, he verified the experts’ preliminary assessment that the nuclear and physical security situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant appeared stable with no immediate threat, but several of the seven fundamental principles had been violated.

Додатково до вчорашньої заяви @RafaelMGrossi, де висловлено серйозне занепокоєння щодо обстрілу #ЗАЕС, попередня оцінка експертів #МАГАТЕ: ситуація з ядерною та фізичною безпекою виглядала стабільною без безпосередньої загрози, але кілька з 7 основоположних принципів порушено.

— IAEA – International Atomic Energy Agency ⚛️ (@iaeaorg) August 7, 2022

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