Ukraine’s Zelensky urges other countries to act before Russia attacks nuclear plant
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine wants other countries to heed its warning that Russia may be planning to attack an occupied nuclear power plant to cause a radiation disaster, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Members of his government briefed international representatives Thursday on the possible threat to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. In his nightly address, Zelensky said he expected other nations to “give appropriate signals and exert pressure” on Moscow.
“Our principle is simple: The world must know what the occupier is preparing. Everyone who knows must act,” Zelensky said. “The world has enough power to prevent any radiation incidents, let alone a radiation catastrophe.”
The potential for a life-threatening release of radiation has been a concern since Russian troops invaded Ukraine last year and seized the plant, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power station. The head of the United Nations’ atomic energy agency spent months unsuccessfully trying to negotiate for a safety perimeter to protect the facility as nearby areas came under repeated shelling.
The International Atomic Energy Agency noted Thursday that the “the military situation has become increasingly tense” as a Ukrainian counteroffensive that got underway this month unfolds in Zaporizhzhia province, where the namesake plant is located, and in an adjacent part of Donetsk province.
On Friday, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi met with the director of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom to discuss the conditions at the plant.
Workers at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are recounting fears of being abducted and tortured or killed by Russian forces who seized control of the facility and the city of Enerhodar.
Rosatom director Alexey Likachev and other officials at the meeting in the Kaliningrad exclave “emphasized that they now expect specific steps” from the U.N. agency to prevent Ukrainian attacks on the plant and its adjacent territory, a statement from the Russian corporation said.
The Ukrainian governor of Zaporizhzhia, Yuriy Malashko, reported Friday that Russian shelling in the southern province in the last day killed two people. An attack that hit a transportation company in Kherson city, the capital of Kherson province, killed two others Friday, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Russia also fired 13 cruise missiles overnight at a military airfield in western Khmelnytskyi province, but Ukrainian air defenses intercepted them all, according to the air force. The attack came after Russian-appointed officials accused Ukraine of firing missiles that damaged a bridge that serves as a key supply link to Russian-occupied areas of southern Ukraine.
Russia’s air-launched Kh-101 and Kh-555 missiles were launched from the Caspian Sea, the air force said. It did not identify the targeted airfield, but Ukraine has an air base near the Khmelnytskyi region’s town of Starokostiantyniv.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is silently watching raucous infighting that has emerged among top members of his entourage amid the war in Ukraine.
The base houses fighter jets and bombers, and five years ago it hosted a training exercise with air force personnel from the U.S., Ukraine and seven European countries. It has come under Russian attack previously, including within the last month.
Ukrainian forces so far have made only incremental gains in Zaporizhzhia province, one of four regions of the country that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last year. Putin has pledged to defend the regions as Russian territory.
Zelensky has said that Ukraine is fighting to force Russian troops out of those regions and Crimea, which Moscow is using as a staging ground and supply route in the 16-month-old war. If the counteroffensive, now in its early stages, breaks Russian defenses in the south, Ukrainian forces could attempt to reach a pair of occupied port cities on the Sea of Azoz and break Russia’s land bridge to Crimea.
Zelensky’s nighttime remarks Thursday on a possible attack on the nuclear power plant carried a tone of frustration with “countries that are pretending to be neutral even now” in the war. He said that “anyone who turns a blind eye to Russia’s occupation of such a facility” was enabling Moscow to commit an act of evil and terror.
A top Ukrainian official has outlined a series of steps the government in Kyiv would take after the country reclaims control of Crimea from Russia.
“Obviously, radiation does not ask who is neutral and can reach anyone in the world,” Zelensky said. “Accordingly, anyone in the world can help now, and it is quite clear what to do.”
On Friday, Russia claimed that it was the target of “an information and propaganda campaign to discredit the country in the international arena.”
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, said five people were arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle 2.2 pounds of the radioactive isotope Cesium-137 out of the country under the direction of a Ukrainian citizen. The FSB said the material was to be used for “organizing staged scenes of the use of weapons of mass destruction.” Cesium-137 is often mentioned as being of potential use in making a “dirty bomb” that could contaminate a wide area.
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