During a UN Security Council meeting, representatives of the EU, US, and Ukraine attributed responsibility for incidents at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Russia, which occupies the nuclear facility.
“Russia bears full responsibility for the nuclear safety risks it is creating at the captured ZNPP,” said Stavros Lambrinidis, the EU’s Permanent Representative to the UN.
On 7 and 9 April, drones hit the main reactor containment structures of the ZNPP. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) has reported that Russian occupying forces orchestrated an attack on the ZNPP using FPV drones to blame Ukraine.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest, has been occupied by Russian forces since spring 2022.
The EU’s Permanent Representative to the UN said that “for the first time, a country that is a permanent member of the UN Security Council has illegally seized a nuclear power plant from one of its neighbors.”
Serhiy Kyslytsia, Ukraine’s Representative to the UN, said, “The only root cause of all nuclear safety risks is Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war of aggression against Ukraine.”
He explained that what happened at the ZNPP on April 7 and 9, 2024, and afterward, “was a well-planned false flag operation by the Russian Federation.” The attack aimed to shift focus from the root cause and the only way to eliminate all threats to nuclear and physical nuclear security – de-occupation of the plant.
According to him, Moscow wants to “feed the world a version that nuclear reactors, whose protection was designed to withstand the strongest blows, were attacked by low-power, short-range unmanned aerial vehicles intended to strike infantry and small vehicles at a range of several kilometers.”
Robert Wood, US Deputy Representative to the UN, said that control by Russian occupation forces over the ZNPP, as well as the operation of the plant by unqualified personnel, increases risks to the safety of the major nuclear facility in Ukraine.
Read also:
- Russia plans another false-flag attack on Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine’s military warns
- Daily Russian strikes in Zaporizhzhia Oblast rise from 200 to 500 since February, regional authorities say
- Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s reactors now in cold shutdown for increased safety
