Zelenskyy: Russian nuclear specialists do not understand the situation at the Zaporizhzhia power plant

Kateryna Tyshchenko – Friday, 29 April 2022, 20:20

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has stressed that the partial occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by Russian troops still poses a threat and called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to have it returned to Ukrainian control.

Source: Zelenskyy in an interview with Polish media

According to Zelenskyy: "This remains a grave threat. Currently part of the power plant in Enerhodar [the Zaporizhzhia plant] remains partly occupied by Russian troops."

Details: Zelenskyy said that currently both Ukrainian specialists and specialists brought in by Rosatom [Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation] from Russia are at the Zaporizhzhia plant. According to him, the Russian specialists are attempting to leave under various pretexts as they do not properly understand the plant’s computerised internal processes.

According to Zelenskyy: "It was suggested that we hand over our nuclear power plant to Russian management; unfortunately this suggestion was also made by some of our international partners. We refused."

"Currently we are technically in control of the situation, but only in part, because there are armed soldiers at the site. Another issue is that they don’t understand anything that’s going on there at all.

"We are waiting for the occupation of the power plant to be ended. We have officially informed the IAEA that this is necessary."

More details: Zelenskyy noted that at the moment he does not see how the IAEA can return the Zaporizhzhia plant to Ukrainian control.

He said that Russian soldiers have shelled the plant’s reactor units using tanks and armoured vehicles.

"There were nearly 120 vehicles there. They surrounded the plant, killed several people and shelled the reactors. At first they even told the IAEA that the reactors weren’t hit. That’s not true. We found evidence that they hit a nuclear reactor. But it was well-protected," Zelenskyy said.

The President also said that during the Russian occupation of the Chornobyl nuclear plant Russian soldiers did not kill the plant’s Ukrainian staff because they did not have any Russian nuclear specialists and the soldiers were afraid of the effects of radiation.

"We are lucky that Russian soldiers did not have those specialists and they got scared because a lot of their people, their soldiers, started feeling unwell. They were taken away and concealed. I don’t know if they’re alive. They entered radioactive areas. They didn’t have their own specialists, and so they left ours alive because they themselves were scared," Zelenskyy said.

Earlier: Zelenskyy said that on 26 April, the anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster, Russia launched three missiles over three Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Russian missiles over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants could cause a nuclear accident.