UN watchdog warns Ukraine nuclear power plant on verge of accident

United Nations, United States:

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog warned on Monday that Ukraine’s Zaporozhye nuclear power plant was on the verge of an accident due to recent attacks.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for last week’s attack but it was “impossible” to prove who was behind it.

Zaporozhye, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, has been occupied by Russian forces since February 2022, shortly after they began their invasion.

Since that year, the center has been closed due to frequent shelling attacks.

The plant has been hit by a series of drone attacks since April 7, the first direct attack on the plant since November 2022.

“These reckless attacks must stop immediately,” Grossi told a U.N. Security Council meeting.

“While fortunately they did not lead to a radioactive incident this time, they significantly increased the risk at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, whose nuclear safety was already compromised,” said Grossi, whose agency is responsible for the Staff were deployed at the facility.

He said the attack “set a very dangerous precedent” because the reactor’s confinement structure was attacked.

Asked later by reporters who was responsible for the attack, Grossi said it was “simply impossible” to identify.

The attacks were carried out via drones, devices with “different trajectories. It would hover, it would hover.”

Drones are “available almost anywhere,” Grossi said.

He said earlier that “two years of war have put heavy pressure on nuclear safety at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant” and that “each of the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear safety and security has been compromised.

“We cannot stand idly by and watch the ultimate weight tip into the delicate balance scale,” he warned.

“We are dangerously close to a nuclear accident. We must not become complacent and let the roll of the dice determine what will happen tomorrow,” he said.

Even if the reactors are shut down, the risk of a major accident remains, he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)