Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant’s Cooling Tower ‘Seriously’ Damaged by Ukrainian Drone Attack – Rosatom
Aug. 11, 2024
SIMFEROPOL (Sputnik) – The attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which resulted in a fire in the area of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant’s (ZNPP) cooling towers, breached the plant’s physical integrity, creating an unprecedented threat to nuclear safety, the plant’s spokesperson, Yevgeniya Yashina, told Sputnik.
“In essence, this attack is one of the elements of disabling the station. This is an unprecedented threat to nuclear safety, since the nuclear power plant has suffered such serious damage for the first time. The physical integrity of the nuclear power plant has been breached, thereby breaching the basic principles of the IAEA,” Yashina said.
Later, Russian state corporation Rosatom said that one of the plant’s cooling towers was “seriously damaged” by the attack.
“As a result of the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the cooling tower of the Zaporozhye NPP was seriously damaged,” the statement says.
According to Rosatom, “on August 11, at 20:20 and 20:32, one of the two cooling towers of the Zaporozhye NPP was directly struck by Ukrainian attack drones, resulting in a fire with burning [of] internal structures. By 23:30, the main fire was extinguished by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.”
The plant was attacked by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with a kamikaze drone, Yashina confirmed to Sputnik.
“It was established that the nuclear power plant had been attacked by a kamikaze drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Yashina said.
Earlier on Sunday, the governor of Russia’s Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said that as a result of shelling of the city of Energodar by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, a fire had broken out at the Zaporozhye NPP cooling system facility; there was no threat to the plant; the fire was being extinguished. In turn, the NPP’s press service specified that the fire had been in the area of the ZNPP’s cooling towers, the operation of the plant wasn’t affected in any way and there were no casualties.
“The fire in the area of the NPP’s cooling towers, which started as a result of the shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces, has been localized, and there are no threats of further burning,” the ZNPP said on Telegram.
Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the plant also said they were informed of the strike.
“IAEA experts witnessed strong dark smoke coming from ZNPP’s northern area following multiple explosions heard in the evening. Team was told by ZNPP of an alleged drone attack today on one of the cooling towers located at the site,” the IAEA said in a statement on X.
No impact has been reported for nuclear safety, the statement confirmed.
Rosatom called the attack an act of nuclear terrorism in a statement on Monday.
“We would like to draw your attention to the fact that today’s strike was carried out on the NPP equipment, the main task of which is to cool water during normal operation of the plant. Thus, this event can be characterized as an act of nuclear terrorism on the part of the Ukrainian authorities,” the statement says.
Published at sputnikglobe.com
From Moscow to Damascus: The art of provocation
Of course we cannot present police – like proofs, still the attack on Moscow bears all the characteristics of the provocations with which the “Party of War”, a “Black International” within the “collective West”, is continuously trying to escalate the conflicts either with Russia or in the Middle East, sometimes with, sometimes without the consent of the mainstream western political establishment (Maidan, bombing of Syria twice under Trump, Soleimani’s assassination, sending a British destroyer near Crimea during the See Breeze exercises in 2021, attacks on Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station, blowing up of the NordStream pipeline, assassination of the Russian journalist Daria Dugina, among many others), writes Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, ex-advisor at the office of the Greek PM Andreas Papandreou on Arms Control and East-West relations.
It should be noted that not long before the terrorist attack in Moscow, Victoria Nuland “promised” President Putin some nasty surprises! And perhaps the Priestess of Darkness would have had even bigger ones if President Biden had not decided to fire her, possibly because she was conspiring with German government officials for actions that did not have the approval of President Biden and Chancellor Scholz.
The main objective of those who organised the terrorist operation in Moscow was, according to all existing indications, to provoke an escalation of the conflict in and around Ukraine. This escalation is sought by those who cannot in any way accept a now quite probable Western defeat or compromise in Ukraine and are prepared to risk even a nuclear war in order to avoid it. (Another minor, but not insignificant, aspect of the terrorist attack in Moscow was that it momentarily distracted attention from Gaza. A similar situation also arose in Israel’s previous operation in Gaza in 2021. While the world’s spotlight was on the massacre of Palestinians, a bizarre hijacking of a plane which landed in Belarus changed the international agenda).
Continue reading at en.interaffairs.ru/
Who wants a nuclear disaster in Ukraine? The role of the Black International
By Dimitris Konstantakopoulos
Russia has accused Kiev of carrying out “nuclear terrorism”, saying that the Ukrainian bombing of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could lead to a disaster worse than the one in Chernobyl in 1986 (the radiation released at that time reached the entire European continent).
In a striking display of unprecedented and criminal irresponsibility and adventurism, the “collective West ” (G7 and EU) called on Russia to withdraw from the plant, arguing that the risks of something happening stem from its occupation by the Russians and not from its bombing by the Ukrainians – who would never act, by the way, without the approval of Western intelligence agencies, military advisors and NATO.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest in Europe, generates about 20 percent of Ukraine’s electricity and has been occupied by Russian forces since 4 March. An explosion at the plant could have ten times the impact of the Chernobyl explosion.
According to the General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi,”the bombing of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant highlights the very real danger of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond.”
Continue reading at www.defenddemocracy.press/
We remind our readers that publication of articles on our site does not mean that we agree with what is written. Our policy is to publish anything which we consider of interest, so as to assist our readers in forming their opinions. Sometimes we even publish articles with which we totally disagree, since we believe it is important for our readers to be informed on as wide a spectrum of views as possible.
