The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine suffered no critical damage in the attack, Andrii Tuz, a spokesman for the plant, told DailyExpertNews on Friday, adding that when firefighters initially arrived, they were blocked by Russian forces.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Ukraine’s regulator had told the organization there was no change in reported radiation levels and that the fire had not affected “essential” equipment. The White House said it is monitoring the situation.
Attention is focused on the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants as the Russian invasion of the country intensifies. The prospect of the fire wreaking havoc on the nuclear power plant has alarmed experts, though they warned it was too early to gauge the full impact.
Graham Allison, a professor at the Belfer Center, Harvard University, told Anderson Cooper early Friday that “the facts are unfolding,” but “not all power plant fires are catastrophic.”
Ukrainian officials called on Russian troops to end the fighting after reports of the factory’s first attack surfaced Friday morning local time
A large number of Russian tanks and infantry “broke through the blockade” to the town of Enerhodar, a few kilometers from the Zaporizhzhya power plant, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said, according to a statement from the watchdog.
The agency was closely monitoring the situation and Grossi spoke to Ukraine’s prime minister and the country’s nuclear regulator about the blaze, the IAEA said on Twitter early Friday.
Matthew Bunn, a James R. Schlesinger professor of energy, national security and foreign policy practice at the Harvard Kennedy School at Ukraine’s nuclear power plant, told DailyExpertNews: “It’s certainly not the worst-case scenario. The dangers to the Ukrainian people are bullets, bombs and grenades, no radiation.”
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Zaporizhzhya plant contains six of the country’s 15 nuclear power reactors.
In an interview with DailyExpertNews on Thursday, Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA, said the agency was in “constant contact” with Ukrainian colleagues to ensure the security of facilities in Ukraine.
“What makes it unprecedented is that this is the first time in post-WWII history that we’ve had a full-fledged military operation amid … a large number of nuclear facilities, including nuclear reactors,” Grossi said.
“There is always the danger of military activity that could affect the sites or that there would be an interruption or disruption in the normal operation of any of these facilities that could lead to a problem or an accident,” he said.
Zaporizhzhya is located about 200 kilometers west of the city of Donetsk in one of two pro-Moscow areas recognized as an independent state by Russia last month.
IAEA member states passed a resolution on Thursday calling on Russia to end actions against nuclear facilities in Ukraine, diplomats said.
The resolution, led by Canada and Poland and supported by 26 other countries, deplored Russia’s “aggressive activity and attacks on nuclear sites in Ukraine, and the seizure and control of nuclear facilities,” the British mission’s ambassador in Vienna Corinne said Kitsell.
Only Russia and China voted against the resolution, the Czech Republic’s foreign ministry said.
Russia informed the IAEA on Wednesday that its forces have taken control of the area around the Zaporizhzhya factory, according to a letter posted on the IAEA website.
The Russian letter to the IAEA states that plant personnel are continuing their “work of providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal operating mode. Radiation levels remain normal.”
On the first day of the invasion, Russian forces seized control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, according to Ukrainian officials.
The Zaporizhzhya plant is located about 520 kilometers southeast of Chernobyl, where a nuclear reactor exploded when Ukraine became part of the Soviet Union in 1986. radioactive materials released into the atmosphere.
Ukraine has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that personnel detained at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) since Russian forces took control of the site a week ago have faced “psychological pressure and moral exhaustion.” the newspaper said. a statement from IAEA on Thursday.
In a joint request to the international nuclear watchdog, the Ukrainian government, the regulatory agency and the national operator said the facility’s staff should be allowed to rest and rotate so that their critical work can be performed safely.