- Kyiv warns of a Chornobyl-style disaster unless the area is secured
- Both sides are in favor of the nuclear inspectors’ visit
- UN’s Guterres says any attack on nuclear power plant ‘suicide’
- Two Ukrainian grain ships leave ports, 12 since last week
KYIV, Aug 8 (Reuters) – International alarm over the weekend bombing of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex grew on Monday as Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the attacks as they tried to deal with fears that the their battle for control of the plant could trigger a catastrophe.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called any attack on a nuclear power plant a “suicidal thing,” demanding that UN nuclear inspectors be given access. Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest complex, is located in a southern region seized by Russian invaders in March and now targeted by Ukraine for a counter-offensive.
Kyiv called for the area to be demilitarized and for the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to be allowed in. Russia’s foreign ministry said it also favored a visit by the IAEA, which it accused Ukraine of blocking while trying to “take Europe hostage”. ” shelling the plant. Read more
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Ukraine blamed Russia for weekend attacks in the area of the complex, which is still run by Ukrainian technicians. He said three radiation sensors were damaged, with two workers hospitalized with shrapnel injuries.
Reuters was unable to verify either side’s version of what happened.
Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s state nuclear power company Energoatom, called for peacekeepers to be deployed and targeted at the Zaporizhzhia site, with operational control returned to Ukraine.
He singled out the danger of shells hitting containers of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel as particularly serious. If two or more containers were breached, “it is impossible to assess the scale” of the resulting disaster.
“Such crazy actions could let the situation get out of control and it will be a Fukushima or Chornobyl,” Kotin said.
“WORKING WITH RUSSIAN WEAPONS”
Yevhenii Tsymbaliuk, Ukraine’s ambassador to the IAEA, said Zaporizhzhia personnel were “working under the guns of Russian weapons.” It called for a UN-led international mission to the plant in late August and accused Russia of trying to cause blackouts in southern Ukraine’s power grid by targeting the plant. Read more
Meanwhile, Russia’s defense ministry said Ukrainian strikes had damaged high-voltage power lines serving the Soviet-era plant and forced it to cut output at two of its six reactors to “ avoid interruptions”. Read more
An official installed by Russia in the Zaporizhzhia region previously said the facility was operating normally.
The UN’s Guterres said IAEA staff needed access to Zaporizhzhia to “create conditions for stabilisation”.
A view shows the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the course of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, August 4, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko
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“Any attack (on) a nuclear power plant is a suicidal thing,” he told a news conference in Japan, where he attended the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony on Saturday to mark the 77th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing .
The world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster occurred in 1986 when a reactor at the Chornobyl complex in northwestern Ukraine exploded. Shortly after the invasion on February 24 this year, Russian troops occupied this site and withdrew from the area at the end of March.
Ukraine has said it plans to launch a major counter-offensive in the Russian-occupied south, apparently centered on the city of Kherson, west of Zaporizhzhia, and has already retaken dozens of villages.
OIL EXPORTS GAIN STEAM
Nearby, a deal to unblock Ukraine’s food exports and ease global shortages picked up pace as two grain ships left Ukrainian Black Sea ports on Monday, bringing the total to 12 since the first ship left a week ago. Read more
The last two outbound ships were carrying nearly 59,000 tons of corn and soybeans and were bound for Italy and southeastern Turkey. The four that left on Sunday were carrying almost 170,000 tons of corn and other food.
The July 22 grain export pact negotiated by Turkey and the United Nations represents a rare diplomatic triumph for Ukraine. The agreement aims to help ease the rise in world food prices resulting from the war.
Before the invasion, Russia and Ukraine together accounted for nearly a third of world wheat exports. The disruption has since raised the specter of famine in parts of the world.
Ukraine has said it expects to export 20 million tons of grain in silos and 40 million of its new crop to help rebuild its shattered economy.
Russia says it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to rid it of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked imperial-style war to reassert control over a pro-Western neighbor lost when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
The conflict has displaced millions of people, killed thousands of civilians and left cities, towns and villages in ruins.
Russian forces are trying to gain full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where pro-Moscow separatists seized territory after the Kremlin annexed Crimea in the south in 2014.
“Ukrainian soldiers are firmly maintaining the defense, inflicting losses on the enemy and are ready for any changes in the operational situation,” Ukraine’s general staff said in an operational update on Monday.
Russian forces stepped up attacks north and northwest of the Russian-held city of Donetsk in Donbas on Sunday, the Ukrainian military said.
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Reuters bureau reports; Writing by Stephen Coates, Mark Heinrich, John Stonestreet; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Nick Macfie, Peter Graff
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