Nuclear Terrorism By Kiev’s Regime Remains Unpunished
The Kiev regime continues to commit acts of terrorism in areas over which it has lost control. In recent days, Ukrainian forces have shelled nuclear facilities in the Zaporozhye region several times.
On August 7, the Zelensky’s regime committed a new act of nuclear terrorism at the energy infrastructure facilities of the Zaporozhye NPP to create a humanitarian catastrophe in the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed.
The attack was carried out at about midnight. The AFU used the Hurricane MLRS. Fragments and a rocket engine fell 400 meters from the operating power unit of the station. Striking elements damaged administrative buildings and the adjacent territory of the storage. A voltage surge at the plant caused smoke on the open switchgear of the station. The security system turned off the power supply. As a result of the Ukrainian shelling, the Kakhovskaya high-voltage line, which provided electricity to the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, was damaged.
Ukrainian units of the 44th Artillery Brigade fired at the Zaporozhye NPP from the area of Marganets on the opposite bank of the Kakhovsky reservoir.
The military-civil administration of Energodar noted that every day the artillery strikes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are being applied closer to the power units on the territory of the Zaporozhye NPP.
The nuclear fuel storage is in the affected area. At the moment, about 156 containers with a total of 3,744 fuel elements are stored in the open air at the Zaporozhye NPP, at the storage site of spent fuel elements.
The attacks pose a threat to hundreds of thousands of civilians on the territory of Ukraine, as well as countries in Europe and Asia.
In order to prevent disruption of the operation of the nuclear power plant, the capacity of the 5th and 6th power units was reduced to 500 MW.
Earlier, on Friday the AFU fired three times at the area of the Zaporozhye NPP. A fire broke out, two power lines necessary for the operation of power units were cut off.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP by Ukraine a “suicidal act.”
“We hope that this will stop,” he added at a press conference in Tokyo.
The Zaporozhye NPP, the largest in Europe, is located in the steppe zone on the shore of the Kakhovsky reservoir in the Energodar of the Zaporozhye region, which is controlled by allied Russian and DPR forces. The station has six power units with a total capacity of 6,000 MW. Annually, the plant generates about 40 billion kWh of electricity – about 20% of its production in Ukraine. In total, four nuclear power plants are currently operating in Ukraine.
According to the head of the administration of the Zaporozhye region, the leadership of the IAEA is aware of the risks caused by the shelling of the Zaporozhye NPP by Ukrainian troops, but does not take real measures to prevent them. The local authorities addressed both the IAEA and the United Nations, but received no replies and no actions have been taken by the international organisations to secure the facility.
posted by Bruce K. Gagnon | 3:46 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Bruce,
This is the first I believe you have said anything about the Zaporozhye NPP since NATO's provocations or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
My question is why is Russia occupying the plant? It's a fair prior question, even as I condemn the artillery attacks on the plant.
On the WBW webinar you presented earlier this week, you said that the Donbas is "where the fight is going on today, on the red part of the map." (8:47)
But Zaporozhye is not there, and the Ukrainian operators have been working under the barrel of Russian guns since early March.
I don't understand why you, opposed to nuclear power in space and on earth, cannot critique the Russians for their actions at Zaporozhye.
On the WBW webinar, in response to a question about criticizing Russia, you implored the audience to abstain from criticizing Russia's "self-defense", but your fervent explanations of Russia's actions in ALL of Ukraine (not only the Donbas) are sounding more like excuses than critiques of U.S. policy, when their war now involves occupying nuclear power plants that are not in the disputed Donbas territory. This is a global, not a parochial, provincial issue.
The IAEA should be in charge, if not the Ukrainian operators who know the place.
I love you and respect your work, Bruce, but as an anti-imperialist, I feel free to criticize Russian imperialism before it gets as severe as American's version. I can speak from shameful benefit from and experience of America's imperialism.
Jack Cohen-Joppa
I believe that Russia is working to keep the nuclear plant secure considering the fact that Kiev's Nazi-led forces have repeatedly attacked the plant.
Kiev is likely trying to do two things: to spread radioactivity throughout the Russian-ethnic regions of Ukraine and greater Russia. (Although it would also spread to Europe and beyond).
Secondly, Kiev (I would guess instructed by Washington neo-cons) would quickly blame Russia for the dirty deed - which in fact they have just now done.
Russia sill has the Ukrainian nuclear plant workers on the job. Likely with some Russian nuclear experts there to help. Russian military forces are outside defending the plant from more Kiev attacks.
I wish you and others were as troubled by US Tomahawk nuclear-capable missile launchers built in Romania and Poland. A Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
And the endless NATO expansion eastward and their war games right on Russia's doorstep.
It would be nice to hear you speak forthrightly about the US orchestrated coup d'etat in Kiev in 2014 by the Obama administration. And the US trained, armed and directed Kiev military forces since then.
How about the 14,000 dead Donbass citizens (with 34,000 wounded) shelled by the Nazi forces since 2014)? Where were all the howls from my peacenik friends about those lives over these years?
I'm listening....I'm waiting....
In peace,
Bruce
Bruce, why do you presume that I am not "troubled" by the multi-use missile launchers? Or that I am not critical of each particular act of U.S. neo-imperialism you have noted here? It is true, I'm not a blogger. You can't just google my views like a published pundit. My work is more editing and reporting than commentary. But in your general frustration with the "peace" movement, you seem to summarily dismiss me personally.
Those Tomahawks, should they be deployed in the multi-capable launchers, were made by my neighbors working at Raytheon, here in Tucson, where I have vigiled in opposition each month since the late 1990s. And I've listened to your talks (in person, even) learning history from you as well as others since I started reading about Ukraine in college.
I did say the following, among other things, when invited to address a Tucson Peace Center rally on March 6 (The local newspaper rejected the guest opinion I submitted based on this talk):
"The United States has started, promoted and eagerly prolonged the whole nuclear mess, and remains the focus of my demands as an American.
"That said, I am also responsible to my human family to condemn, as I do, the nuclear weapons of Israel, France, China, Britain, Pakistan, North Korea and India.
"And let's be clear: Russia. With the only nuclear arsenal anywhere near comparable to the U.S. arsenal, Russia doesn’t get impunity now for publicly threatening the same extinction-level event that the USA and NATO also threaten daily. Radiation does not stop for national borders and our advocacy for humanity should not.
"A pox on all your nuclear houses!
"We need a global peace movement aligned with no states, and definitively not with a nuclear-armed state.
"And now for the first time in history, a major war is being waged in a country with multiple nuclear reactors and thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent fuel…"
I believe we can also agree that the war is by now raging well beyond the "red part" of the map you used for the WBW webinar. And that the thousands of operators at Zaporozhye are laboring under duress, with all that entails.
Jack Cohen-Joppa
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