2023-07-04 22:34:41
By Anatole Clement
Posted yesterday at 7:39 PM, Updated yesterday at 10:34 PM
Decontamination exercise after a possible nuclear incident in the city of Zaporizhia, June 29. STRINGER / REUTERS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday evening that he had warned Emmanuel Macron against the “dangerous provocations” which Russia is preparing, according to him, in the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Tuesday afternoon, July 4, Valerii Shershen, one of the spokespersons for the Ukrainian army, announced territorial gains of two kilometers on the south of the front. A few dozen kilometers from the area in question is the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. As the Ukrainian army advances towards the atomic complex, Russian forces have ordered the evacuation of civilian and military personnel from the plant and have mined the buildings, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services.
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Ukraine claims that the evacuation of the plant by Russia must be completed this Wednesday, July 5, 2023. The civilian employees and the Russian soldiers still present on the spot should join the Crimea. Moscow denies the information and denounces an attempt to «manipulation» Ukrainian. It is the same for the accusations of sabotage of the reactors. Again, Ukraine accuses Russia, which for its part denies.
«There is a serious threat because Russia is technically ready to cause a localized explosion at the station, which could lead to a radioactive leak“warned the Ukrainian president on Saturday at a press conference. The Ukrainian president renewed his warning on Tuesday evening, during a telephone conversation with his French counterpart. “I warned Emmanuel Macron that the occupation troops were preparing dangerous provocations at the Zaporijjia power plant”, Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement. “We have agreed to control the situation as much as possible, with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)”he added.
Zaporijjia, nuclear power plant at the heart of the war
The renewed fear of a nuclear disaster is not only worrying in Kyiv. In the city of Zaporijjia, located about fifty kilometers northeast of the plant, the population is preparing for the worst: evacuation exercises, training in the use of anti-radiation equipment.
Fears of sabotage of the power plant are all the more acute since the explosion of the Kakhovka dam on June 6th. This had an obvious military interest for Russia. The flooding made the banks of the Dnieper downstream impassable, considerably reducing the front area for the Russian soldiers to defend. The facts clearly pointed to Moscow’s responsibility in what was described as a new “war crime” by Kiev: the explosion was internal to the structure, then controlled by Russia, a Russian brigade was present at the time of the explosion and intercepted conversations suggest the premeditation of the disaster.
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This disaster demonstrated that the Russian army does not hesitate to cause a major ecological disaster when a strategic interest is at stake. At the heart of nuclear blackmail between the two camps since the beginning of the war, an explosion at the Zaporizhia power plant – a disaster scenario, which worries the whole of Europe – no longer seems completely impossible. In parallel with this danger of sabotage, the very stability of the plant again poses a threat. The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, issued a warning, citing a situation “extremely fragile“, while the only emergency power line of the plant was restored on July 3, then disconnected again the next day.
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