Russia, Ukraine starts blame-game at UN over nuclear plant attack

New York, Mar 5: On Thursday, Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Russian forces had taken control of the site of the country's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. It has also been claimed that a projectile overnight had hit a training building in the vicinity of one of the plant's reactor units, causing a localized fire that was later extinguished.

 

 

This resulted in to call an urgent UN meeting as the United States and its European allies have requested it. They started to accuse Russia of recklessly endangering global safety due to the fire breaking out near the nuclear plant.

 

 

Kyiv’s envoy Sergiy Kyslytsya said Moscow committed “nuclear terrorism” when its forces captured Zaporizhzhia, calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine an attack on “humanity”. He further informed, "Main building & over parts of the special building are damaged, telephone line connection disrupted... if at any point cooling process is disturbed, it'd cause radioactive damage across large territories & have irreparable consequences to environment of entire continent".

 

 

Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, however, dismissed reports that Russian troops attacked the Zaporizhzhia plant as “lies” and “disinformation”. He said, "Today we have once again heard lies about how Russian troops attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, it's all part of an unprecedented campaign of lies & disinformation against Russia".

 

He said, "The city of Enerhodar, Zaporizhzhya NPP & the adjacent territories were taken by the Russian Army under its control back on Feb 28. As a result of negotiations with the power plant management, an agreement was reached to place it under the Russian military's guard. Goal is to prevent Ukrainian nationalists & other terrorist forces from taking advantage of the current situation to organize a nuclear provocation; goal is also to ensure the security of the station & prevent interruptions in power supply to Ukraine & European consumers".

 

 

He attacked the Ukrainian representative Ukraine was the one behind the fire breaking out. "At present, Zaporizhzhya NPP & adjacent territory are being guarded by Russian troops... on night of Mar 4, a Russian mobile patrol was attacked by a Ukrainian sabotage group on adjacent territory of Zaporizhzhya NPP... Russian patrol returned fire & suppressed it," he said.

Later, he explained, "As they were leaving, the Ukrainian sabotage group set fire to the training facility, which is not located on the territory of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Fire brigades were able to extinguish the fire on the premises... there's no threat of a release of radioactive material".