On the evening of July 4, the Ukrainian authorities and the Russian company Rosenergoatom accused each other of trying to mount a provocation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Energodar. The Kremlin announced the catastrophic consequences of a possible sabotage against the ZNPP, whose threat is “great”. Details on the situation are in the Russian media material.
On July 4, the adviser to the head of the Rosenergoatom enterprise, Renat Karchaa, announced the plans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) to attack the ZNPP at night with drones and the high-precision projectile Tochka-U “with a warhead stuffed with radioactive waste.In this respect, according to him, the plant is taking “maximum protective measures”.
What does the Ukrainian side say
On the same day, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine issued a statement that objects resembling explosive devices were placed on the roof of the third and fourth power units of the ZNPP. Their undermining will not damage motor units, but “could create an image of bombardment from Ukraine,” the General Staff said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his evening speech, repeated the reports of the alleged planting of explosives on the roof of the ZNPP, urging the world community to pay attention to what is happening around the plant. “Different states around the world have their own intelligence and other capabilities to know exactly what is going on and who is to blame,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Anna Malyar, in turn, said that in the Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Nikolaev regions, the emergency services had been conducting exercises for several days to overcome the consequences of a “possible terrorist attack” at the ZNPP.
What they say in Russia
On July 5, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom called Zelenskyy’s accusations nonsense, saying the Ukrainian president was “shamelessly lying.”
“Why do we need explosives there?” This is nonsense to maintain tension around the ZNPP. Our priority is nuclear safety. Mining the roof of power units, on the contrary, poses a threat, we cannot afford it”, said Karchaa at Interfax.
Commenting on the worsening situation around the ZNPP, Dmitry Peskov, press secretary to the President of Russia, said that all measures were being taken to counter the threat of sabotage against the plant.
“The situation is quite tense, because the threat of sabotage by the Kiev regime is really great, sabotage which can be catastrophic in its consequences,” a Kremlin spokesman said (quote on the telegram channel of the Mayak radio station).
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Zelenskyy of planning to carry out a terrorist attack against the ZNPP and warned that the consequences would affect the whole world.
“There is no corner of the planet that it will not affect, because there is such a thing as the atmosphere, the oceans or the same agricultural products”, said Zakharova on the air of its author’s program on Sputnik radio.
What they tell the IAEA
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said on Wednesday that the organization’s employees had not revealed signs of mining at the ZNPP during the last inspections.
“During our last inspections, we did not identify any mining activity, however, we continue to remain vigilant,” estimate Coarse TASS.
The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in a report dated July 4 called it “unlikely” the occurrence of a “mass radiation incident” in the event of a possible provocation at the ZNPP. The plant’s reactors were designed to withstand significant damage, ISW said.
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