Ukraine's Foreign Ministry calls on G7, EU to take measures to prevent nuclear disaster at ZNPP

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement on its official website.

"Mining and other forms of militarization of the Zaporizhzhia NPP by Russia pose an immediate threat of a nuclear incident at Europe's largest nuclear power plant. According to Ukrainian intelligence agencies, Russia is considering a scenario of committing a terrorist act at the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP. Such a terrorist attack will entail global consequences," the statement said. 

By occupying ZNPP, Russia is grossly violating international law and nuclear safety norms and standards, including the 7 fundamental principles of the IAEA on nuclear safety and security, the agency emphasizes. Therefore, they expect a clear assessment of Russia's criminal actions by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi.

"The scale of challenges and threats facing the global nuclear security regime today as a result of the Russian Federation's war against Ukraine is extremely high and requires joint and robust international efforts to avert a nuclear disaster. As a terrorist state, Russia has violated all fundamental principles of international nuclear security law and the vast majority of its own treaty obligations, but was not made to face just consequences for its crimes," the Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry also called on the international community, in particular the G7 and the EU, to take urgent measures to prevent a nuclear disaster at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, including the introduction of enhanced restrictive measures against the Russian nuclear industry and the Russian military-industrial complex. 

In addition, diplomats insist on the need to recognize Russia as a terrorist state and ensure the inevitability of political, economic and legal consequences for all its crimes and illegal actions.

Information available regarding the situation at ZNPP

Russian troops occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP in late February 2022. Since then, personnel and military equipment have been permanently stationed there, which the invading forces store in the machine rooms and from time to time bring to positions to shell the territories of the Nikopol district, Dnipropetrovsk region, located on the other side of the Kakhovka reservoir.

An IAEA monitoring mission is working there to ensure that the plant is not used as a military base, that the plant is not attacked or fired upon, and that external power supplies are not interrupted. However, blackouts at the NPP occur constantly. Since last year, Russian troops have started bringing explosives to ZNPP.

In May 2023, Russian forces had placed explosives in the turbine room of the fourth power unit of the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP. They also almost completely destroyed the emergency preparedness and response system at the nuclear power plant.

On June 22, IAEA Director General Grossi said after visiting ZNPP that the situation there was extremely unstable.

On the same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that intelligence had received information that Russia was considering a scenario of a terrorist attack on the temporarily occupied ZNPP that would cause a radiation release. He also emphasized that the world has enough power to prevent any radiation incidents - it needs to put pressure and act.

Meanwhile, Russian leader’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Zelenskyy's statement a lie.