Kyiv does not want to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and wants to cause a nuclear accident there, pro-Kremlin media say, citing several Russian officials. In reality, the creation of this protection zone can only take place through demilitarization, that is, if the Russian troops withdraw from the territory of the plant, an option that Moscow is not even considering.
Propaganda: Ukraine does not want to collaborate with the IAEA on the creation of a protection zone at Zaporizhzhia
NEWS: “Kyiv is not yet ready to implement the IAEA's initiative on the creation of a protection zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which will exclude the opening of fire from the territory of the plant and against it”, said the permanent representative of Russia to international bodies in Vienna, Mihail Ulyanov […].
“Ukraine, unfortunately, is not ready to take this step”, he wrote on Telegram on Saturday. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located on the left bank of the Dnieper, near the city of Energodar. It is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe by number of reactors and capacity. There are six reactors with a capacity of 1 gigawatt each. Since March 2022, the plant has been under the protection of the Russian army. The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that this step is necessary to avoid the leakage of nuclear and radioactive materials.
The Ukrainian army continues to regularly bombard Energodar and the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, said that the regime in Kyiv is trying to make a nuclear catastrophe possible by continuing to bomb the plant on purpose”.
NARRATIVE: Ukraine is blocking the initiative to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Reality: Russia opposes the IAEA's proposal to demilitarize the plant, increasing the risk of a nuclear disaster
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the creation of a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant depends not only on Ukraine, but mostly on Russia. The Russian press quotes Moscow's permanent representative to international bodies in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, who manipulates the public opinion by telling only half the truth about the creation of a safety zone at Energodar. According to IAEA experts, both sides must cease fire in the area of the plant, this being the first step towards demilitarization.
Moscow says it has every right to militarily “protect” the plant - located on Ukrainian territory and occupied by force, including by using tanks, in the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine - and is vehemently opposed to the idea of withdrawing troops, ammunition, weapons and equipment that it placed on the territory of the nuclear plant. In August 2022, the Kremlin opposed the demilitarization of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and called on the West to pressure Ukraine to reduce tension in that area. The IAEA’s proposal, which provides for the demilitarization of the plant, is rejected by Russia especially after in September 2022 Russia illegally annexed the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, which it partially occupied. Despite warnings from the international community, President Vladimir Putin ordered the plant to be included in the Russian power grid and in the federal nuclear register.
According to Russia's false narratives, which contradict the norms of international law, the plant is the property of the Russian state, and the military, tanks and missiles are kept there to defend the area from bombings and provocations by the Ukrainian military. Based on this truncated logic, it is up to Ukraine alone to create a security protection zone, as Russia manages its nuclear objectives as it sees fit.
Russia is ignoring the request of 42 countries around the world to withdraw its troops from the territory of the power plant to allowe the creation of a protection zone. The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has repeatedly demanded that Russian forces leave the perimeter of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The UN also called for the demilitarization of the plant’s area. All this information proves that it is not Ukraine that is blocking the initiative to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, but Russia, which has invaded a sovereign state and is endangering global nuclear security. Russia's actions are called by experts nuclear terrorism , applied in the context of a war of invasion.
The plant has been exposed to the risk of a nuclear accident by the Russian troops themselves on several occasions - they have opened fire straight at it, fired shots from its territory, and by bombing the Ukrainian energy grid have disconnected it from it. The most recent such attack resulting in a disconnection occurred on March 9, when the plant was disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid for the sixth time since the start of the war after a Russian missile attack. The Ukrainian nuclear operator Energoatom has again warned of the risk of a major accident triggered by the Russian bombing, as electricity is needed to keep the reactors’ cooling mechanisms running, while the existing generators are useful as back-up solutions in exceptional circumstances.
Veridica has debunked a series of false narratives about the situation in the area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The Russian press has written that the IAEA mission praised the Russian army for defending the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant from the Ukrainian attacks. According to the Russian propaganda, at the behest of the USA Kyiv will cause a nuclear disaster in Zaporizhzhia, or an explosion will be “organized” to conceal evidence of the American biological weapons laboratories.
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