the Ukrainian operator warns against a risk of “spray of radioactive substances”

The Zaporijia nuclear power plant remains at the heart of concerns. The Ukrainian operator Energoatom announced on Saturday August 27 that the plant may be connected to the electricity grid, but the presence of Russian military equipment on the site still constituted a major danger.

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Russian troops shelled the site “several times in the last day”said the Ukrainian national company. “As a result of periodic bombardments, the plant’s infrastructure has been damaged and there are risks of hydrogen leakage and spraying of radioactive substances”she said, referring to“high fire risk”.

Between Thursday and Friday, the plant and its six reactors of 1,000 megawatts each were “totally disconnected” of the national grid due to damage to power lines, according to kyiv. Energoatom finally announced that“one of the reactors shut down the day before” had been “reconnected to the electricity grid” Friday. He “produces electricity for the needs of Ukraine” and ” the raise of [sa] power is in progress »the company said.

The IAEA mission pending

Kyiv and Moscow continue to blame each other for the bombardments near the complex, near the town of Enerhodar, on the Dnieper River, and thus putting the plant in danger. Russia has thus accused Ukraine of having fired seventeen shells on the enclosure of the power plant during the last twenty-four hours. “Four fell on the roof of the building (…) where 168 US nuclear fuel assemblies from WestingHouse are located”, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Shells also reportedly crashed 30 meters from a spent fuel depot and near another container of “fresh fuel”.

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According to the Russian army, the Ukrainian army fires from around the town of Marhanets, which faces the plant, on the opposite bank of the Dnieper, still controlled by kyiv. According to the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast, Valentyn Reznitchenko, the Russians, conversely, sent from the Zaporijia power station Grad missiles and artillery shells on the towns of Nikopol and Marhanets.

judging the situation “dangerous”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday urged the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to send a mission there as soon as possible, deploring that Russian troops “constantly pushing towards a worst-case scenario”. The UN has called for all military activity in the surrounding area to cease while, faced with a “very real risk of nuclear catastrophe”the IAEA claims to have access to it.

IAEA experts are expected there ” next week “according to the adviser to the Minister of Energy of Ukraine, Lana Zerkal, who accused the Russians of“artificially create obstacles” to this mission, which Moscow denies. The Agency, for its part, has not confirmed any date.

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The World with AFP

source site-29