An armored vehicle leaves the territory of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), accompanying the motorcade with IAEA Director General Raphael Grossi. Photo: Konstantin Mihalchevskiy/Sputnik/file photo.
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.
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“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.
(Sputnik)
