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BRUSSELS – With anxiety growing about the dangers to Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, occupied by the invading Russian Army, there seems to have finally been some move to appeal to inspectors internationally to the factory to verify its safe operation.
In a conversation late Friday, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia “reviewed” its insistence that inspectors from the National Energy Agency International companies must first go through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia factory, according to the president of France.
The President of Russia is less obvioussaid that “both leaders noted the importance of sending an IAEA mission to the power plant as soon as possible” and that Russia “confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the inspectors” member of this agency”.
The two presidents will talk again about such a mission “in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and prior to the deployment of the mission,” the French say.
The IAEA – the UN’s nuclear watchdog and watchdog – has hit some obstacles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to include the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, since at least June.
Ukraine opposes the idea that inspectors would go into Russian-occupied territory, an option that appears to emphasize Russia’s control of the plant, which supplies at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations has significant security concerns about letting inspectors travel across the front lines of this fierce war, with a lot of shelling.
As Russia and Ukraine blame each other for potentially causing a nuclear disaster at the plant through artillery warfare – part of what a senior Western official on Friday called an “information war” – pressure has increased on Moscow to reduce the capacity of the inspectors. arrive.
That pressure is also coming from Turkey, which has tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, as in the recent agreement to free grain shipments from its Black Sea ports. Ukraine in the context of Russia and the United Nations blockade.
When United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres visited Ukraine last week with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to discuss grain shipments, the UN leader also called for swift action to try to try to keep the Zaporizhzhia factory safe.
Mr. Guterres warned Russia not to disconnect the facility from the Ukrainian grid, as Kyiv says Russia intends to do, to shift supplies to the Russian grid. Such a move could disrupt critical cooling of the reactors and cut power to millions of Ukrainians.
Western officials argue that the main risk of a minor nuclear accident comes from a shell hitting one of the containment buildings around six light-water nuclear reactors, built to withstand 9/11 impact is more like an airplane, than caused by disruption. in electricity. If that happens, and if the factory alternator fails or is damaged, an engine explosion could occur.
The main concern in that respect, a senior Western official said on Friday, would be if the plant loses its cooling capacity due to a backup power outage, should Russia cut off Ukraine’s electricity grid or not. no and if the backup generator fails.
There were also concerns that a shell could hit one of the spent nuclear fuel ponds, but that would have a smaller, localized impact.
Russia has rejected Guterres’ pleas for the demilitarization of the area around the plant.
On Friday, the Director-General of the IAEA, Rafael M. Grossi, “welcomed the recent statements showing that both Ukraine and Russia support the IAEA’s goal of sending a mission” to Zaporizhzhia.
The Russian ambassador to the agency has suggested that such a mission could take place as early as September. But even if inspectors were able to verify the safety of the plant by then, the dangers The danger is certain to persist as the artillery battle continues.
