After a projectile hit a nearby structure on the site overnight, there was no damage to the reactors at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, and no radioactive material was released, according to UN atomic chief Rafael Grossi.
After Ukrainian authorities reported a confrontation with Russian soldiers near Europe’s largest power plant, which is operating at only a fraction of its capacity with one of its six units still operational, two members of security staff were hurt when the projectile impacted overnight.
“This projectile, according to what we’ve learned, is a Russian-made weapon. We don’t know what kind of projectile it was “Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said at a press briefing.
On Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry blamed the incident on “saboteurs” from Ukraine.
Grossi displayed an overhead image of the site, highlighting the training facility, which was hit close to but obviously separate from the reactor buildings.
The site’s radiation monitoring equipment was operational, and no radioactive material had been released, according to Grossi.
He proposed a meeting between Russian and Ukrainian authorities at the decommissioned Chernobyl power station, where Russia has taken radioactive waste facilities near the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 so that they could pledge not to jeopardize Ukraine’s nuclear security.
Despite Grossi’s repeated requests, the Chernobyl staff has not been rotated out since it was seized last week. Zaporizhzhia is in a similar predicament in that Russia governs it, but Ukrainians continue to run it. “For the time being, the operations are conducted entirely by Ukrainians. In this scenario, we have effective control of the site in the hands of the Russians.
