Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, being used as cover by Russians firing missiles into Ukraine-held territory
The Guardian 8/12/2022
On one side of the Dnieper River is the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, visible in the haze. Six nuclear reactors and a cooling tower loom over a Soviet-built reservoir. On the opposite bank is Nikopol, a city in southern Ukraine.
The sprawling nuclear plant is Europe’s largest. In March, Russian forces seized it, as part of Vladimir Putin’s blitzkrieg operation to capture the whole of Ukraine. They rolled into the nearby city of Enerhodar and took the station’s local staff hostage. The plant is now on the frontline between Russian-occupied and Ukrainian-controlled territory.
On 12 July, Moscow began lobbing incendiary devices across the river. The Russians are using the nuclear station as cover. They have mined the complex. Multiple rocket launchers and tanks nestle among the reactors.
Even by Putin’s amoral standards, it is an astonishing act of recklessness. In his latest address on Friday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused Russia of “unconcealed nuclear blackmail”. A “terrorist state”, it was threatening the “whole world” with armageddon. He urged the UN and international community to do something.
On Friday, Russia’s permanent representation in the UN, Vasyl Nebenzia, said the country did not support a call by the UN secretary general, António Guterres, to create a demilitarised zone around the nuclear plant.
The situation is perilous. According to Ukraine’s state energy company, Energoatom, Russia has fired on the plant several times. Shells landed close to the fire station and director’s office, not far from a radioactive sources storage unit. Power cables and a wastewater pumping station were damaged.
Zelenskiy suggests the Russians are shelling the plant as a deliberate provocation, designed to discredit Kyiv and to alienate it from its international partners. The Guardian did not see any evidence in Nikopol of Ukrainian military activity. There were a few thumps in the distance. It was unclear which side was firing.
The Kremlin is trying to do something unprecedented: to steal another state’s nuclear reactor. Engineers are working to connect the facility to the electricity grid in occupied Crimea and cut it off from Ukrainian homes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/13/its-madness-uk…
I would not put it past Putin to cause a nuclear disaster in Ukraine by blowing up Zaporizhzhia plant when Russian army is overpowered and retreating from Ukraine.
Jaak