War in Ukraine: Volodymyr Zelensky evokes the danger around the Zaporizhia power plant
The Zaporijjia nuclear power plant (file image).
© Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0/Ralf1969
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, located in Ukraine but controlled by the Russian army, is a civilian nuclear facility, but caught in the fires of war.
For months, kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of bombing it.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a disaster was narrowly avoided on Thursday August 25, when the plant was disconnected from the electricity system.
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"
The world must realize the threat
", launches Volodymyr Zelensky in one of his usual video interventions.
“
If the diesel generators had not started, if the automatic systems and the personnel of our nuclear power plant had not gone to work, we would have been forced to face the consequences of an accident
”, affirms the Ukrainian president, according to whom "
Russia has put the Ukrainians, as well as all Europeans
" on the brink
of "catastrophe
".
Volodymyr Zelensky assures that the incident was caused by a bombardment by the Russian army.
The statement is alarmist, but this Friday, the reconnection of the plant to the network is underway, according to Energoatom, the operator of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which specifies above all that Zaporijjia remains supplied with electricity by a backup network and that its security systems operate "
normally
".
Guest of RFI this morning, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Rafael Grossi confirmed that he was preparing to go to Zaporijjia at the head of a mission from the Agency in order to assess the situation and the risks and possibly to establish a "
continuous presence
" of the IAEA in Zaporizhia.
With six reactors with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts each, the Zaporizhia power plant fell into the hands of Russian troops in March.
The UN, for its part, has called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the plant in order to guarantee its security and to allow the dispatch of an international inspection mission.
►
Also to listen: "We must try to stabilize the situation" in Zaporijjia, says Rafael Grossi, director of the IAEA
(with
AFP
)
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Ukraine
Russia
Energies
Nuclear
Volodymyr Zelensky