In view of the fighting over the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv is calling on the West to impose sanctions on Russia’s nuclear industry. The punitive measures would have to be taken by the nuclear industry of the aggressor state, said Selenskyj in a video speech distributed on Saturday evening.
Nuclear power Russia builds or operates nuclear power plants in several countries and also stores radioactive waste. The country is considered a competitor in the market for the USA, for example.
Russia is using the nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine to scare people and to blackmail the Ukrainian leadership and the whole world, Zelenskyy said.
For days, Kyiv and Moscow have been accusing each other of being responsible for the shelling of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Russia has occupied the sprawling facility in the city of Enerhodar for months. Sunday is day 172 in the Russian war of aggression.
Zelenskyy again accused the Russian troops of using the area as a fortress in order to fire on the small towns of Nikopol and Marhanets on the other bank of the Dnipro Dam.
He warned that the deployment of Russian troops on the site of the nuclear power plant “increases the radioactive threat to Europe to a level not seen even at the most difficult moments of confrontation during the Cold War.” He had previously warned of a possible nuclear catastrophe.
Zelenskyy went on to say: “Of course there has to be a tough reaction to this.” Ukrainian diplomats and representatives of the partner countries are now doing everything to block Russia’s nuclear industry.
At the same time, the President called for international criminal justice to hold the officials responsible in the “state of terror” accountable. In addition, every Russian soldier who shells the nuclear power plant or hides there becomes a target for Ukrainian secret agents and the army.
With six reactors and a net output of 5700 megawatts, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant was occupied by Russian troops in early March. It is of strategic importance for the country’s electricity supply. Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February.
The leadership in Moscow and the occupation authorities in Zaporizhia have rejected calls for the nuclear power plant to be returned to Ukrainian control. In 1986, the worst nuclear accident on European soil occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
Zelenskyi also said in a speech that the situation in eastern Ukraine is still difficult, but without major changes. The Kharkiv region in particular is repeatedly attacked, but the defense is holding up. Meanwhile, Russia has deployed “colossal resources” in terms of artillery, personnel and equipment in the Donbass.
But there is also good news in the south. There, according to Zelensky, the Ukrainian military repeatedly manages to deal blows to the “Russian occupiers”. According to Ukrainian sources, the car bridge of the Nowa Kakhovka dam in the Cherson region is no longer passable as a result of several attacks. The Ukrainian Army Command South announced on Facebook on Saturday that the bridge had been deliberately rendered unusable by rocket and artillery units.
According to this, the Ukrainian army has now succeeded in using long-range missile systems to destroy the last of the only three river crossings. This is intended to prevent the Russian army from being replenished on the right bank of the Dnipro and to enable recapture.
The Ukrainians had previously rendered the railway bridge and the road bridge at Cherson unusable. Russian troops built a civilian ferry service across the river, and reportedly several pontoon bridges for the military as well.
The administration of the Russian occupiers confirmed the shelling of the dam bridge. At the same time, she warned of damage to the dam wall, which could lead to a catastrophe. The information could not be checked independently.
