Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a near “radiation disaster” as a fire forced the shutdown of the last active reactor at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, hours before the UN nuclear watchdog was due to brief the Security Council on its assessment of status. to the point. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of risking disaster by shelling near the factory, which Russian troops seized soon after launching their invasion of Ukraine on February 24. “Power unit (reactor) No. 6 was unloaded and disconnected from the grid” due to a fire “triggered by shelling” that cut power lines, state-owned Energoatom said in a statement on Monday. The reactor was the last of Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors still operating after the decommissioned reactor number 5 was bombed on Saturday, according to a statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). (Al Jazeera) The UN nuclear agency said Ukraine had said a backup power line had been damaged by the fire, but the connection would be restored once the flames were out. While the plant is occupied by Russia, Ukrainian citizens remain responsible for the operations of the facility, the largest in Europe. “Secure off-grid power and back-up power systems are essential to ensure nuclear safety,” the IAEA added. Speaking in his regular video address on Monday night, Zelensky said the bombings showed Russia “doesn’t care what the IAEA has to say.” “Again – already for the second time – because of the Russian provocation, the Zaporizhzhia station was placed one step away from a radiation disaster,” he said. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is due to announce the findings of its visit to Zaporizhia on Tuesday [D Candano Laris/International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) via Reuters] A 14-person team from the IAEA visited Zaporizhia last week, with agency chief Rafael Grossi saying the site had been devastated by fighting. Grossi is due to release a report on the mission’s findings later on Tuesday and will brief the UN Security Council in open session at 19:00 GMT. The meeting was called by Russia in light of what it said were attempts by Ukraine to “derail” the IAEA visit to Zaporizhia. Zelensky said he hoped the watchdog’s findings would be “objective.” Two IAEA experts are expected to remain at the power plant “on a permanent basis,” Energoatom said in a statement on Monday. Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, was the scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, when a reactor at the northern Chernobyl plant exploded.
