Ukrainian Drones Hit Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant, as Zelenskyy Claims Russia Set Plant on Fire
Aug. 13—The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was hit by two kamikaze drones Aug. 11 according to ZNPP’s communications director Yevgeniya Yashina. She told Sputnik: “It was established that the nuclear power plant had been attacked by a kamikaze drone of the Ukrainian Armed Forces…. In essence, this attack is one of the elements of disabling the station. This is an unprecedented threat to nuclear safety, since the nuclear power plant has suffered serious damage for the first time. The physical integrity of the nuclear power plant has been breached, thereby breaching the basic principles of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN agency that supervise global nuclear safety concerns).”
The operating company Rosatom stated today: “As a result of the attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the cooling tower of the Zaporozhye NPP was seriously damaged…. [O]n August 11, at 20:20 and 20:32, one of the two cooling towers of the Zaporozhye NPP was directly struck by Ukrainian attack drones, resulting in a fire with burning [of] internal structures. By 23:30, the main fire was extinguished by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.”
The IAEA postedon X: “IAEA experts witnessed strong dark smoke coming from ZNPP’s northern area following multiple explosions heard in the evening. Team was told by ZNPP of an alleged drone attack today on one of the cooling towers located at the site.” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi also condemned what he called “reckless attacks” that “endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident.”
Yevhen Yevtushenko, the head of the Ukrainian-controlled military administration in the nearby Nikopol district—the district from which most of the shelling of ZNPP has originated for two and a half years—could only point to “unofficial reports” that suggest Russian forces had set fire to a large number of automobile tires in the plant’s cooling towers, according to AP.
Yesterday, Ukraine’s NATO puppet dictator Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram a video of the fire at the lower levels of the cooling tower and wrote (as translated from Ukrainian): "Energodar. We note from Nikopol that the Russian occupiers started a fire on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Currently, the radiation indicators are normal. But as long as Russian terrorists retain control over the nuclear plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal. From the first day of the seizure of the Zaporizhzhya NPP, Russia has been using it purely for blackmailing both Ukraine and the whole of Europe and the world.
“We are waiting for the reaction of the world, we are waiting for the reaction of the IAEA. Russia should be responsible for this. Only Ukrainian control over the Zaporozhye station can guarantee a return to normalcy and complete security.”
Even though Russia has deactivated all six nuclear reactors at this, the largest NPP in Europe, for the two and a half years now, since Russia took over control of the NPP on March 4, 2022, the Kiev regime has raised the specter of a nuclear catastrophe and repeated the mantra, that the world must react by joining the crusade to take down Russia.At the same time, the Kyiv regime has shelled and other wise attacked the plant, while repeating the logic of the lunatic, Zelenskyy that it is Russia who represents a nuclear safety threat.