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THE UNITED NATIONS’ atomic watchdog called for a security zone to be set up around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russia, as the area was hit by more shelling yesterday.
Russian troops seized control of the plant – Europe’s biggest atomic facility – in March and there have been repeated attacks in the vicinity, sparking fears of a nuclear disaster.
“The current situation is untenable,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a report after it sent inspectors to the plant last week.
“There is an urgent need for interim measures to prevent a nuclear accident…. This can be achieved by the immediate establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone.”
At the United Nations, Russia said it regretted that the report did not blame Ukraine for the attacks.
“We do understand your position as an international regulator, but in the current situation it’s very important to call things by their name,” Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia told a Security Council session attended virtually by IAEA head Rafael Grossi.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling of the site, which took place again yesterday despite the watchdog’s recommendations.
“If the provocations by the Kyiv regime continue, there is no guarantee that there won’t be serious consequences, and the responsibility for that lies fully with Kyiv and its Western backers and all other members of Security Council,” Nebenzia said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he welcomed the fact that the report noted the Russian military occupation of the plant.
He said that if the proposed security zone was aimed at demilitarizing “the territory of the nuclear power plant… then we can support it.”
Kyiv and Moscow continued to trade blame for attacks on the Zaporizhzhia plant, and on the city of Energodar where it is situated.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today:
“There is a need to get additional clarifications because the report contains a number of issues. I will not list them but we requested these clarifications from the IAEA Director General.”
Lavrov’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova today blamed the West for putting “pressure” on the UN atomic agency.
“It is obvious that the West was always putting pressure (on the IAEA) and that it hasn’t stopped,” she was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.
The head of Russia’s state nuclear energy agency Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said today that Moscow would “do our best to ensure the safe operation of the plant exclusively in contact with the IAEA”.
The IAEA sent a 14-person team to the site last week. At least two members were to remain on a permanent basis to ensure the facility’s safety.
But on Monday, the last working reactor was disconnected from the grid after shelling caused a fire.
Meanwhile US President Joe Biden’s administration said it would be counterproductive to brand Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, rejecting calls from Ukraine and lawmakers to take the far-reaching action.
Biden, asked by a reporter on Monday if he would blacklist Russia as a terrorist state, said simply, “no,” after months of non-committal answers from senior officials.
Asked yesterday whether a decision had been made, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a terrorism designation was “not the most effective or strongest path forward” to “hold Russia accountable.”
She said the designation would hamper aid delivery to parts of war-ravaged Ukraine or prevent aid groups and companies from participating in a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to ship badly needed grain from Ukraine’s blockaded ports.
Russia buying rockets
A pro-Kremlin official in the Russian-controlled port city of Berdyansk in southern Ukraine was seriously injured in a car blast, according to Moscow-installed authorities.
In the past months, several officials installed by Russian forces in Moscow-controlled territories in Ukraine have been killed or wounded in attacks.
Kyiv has not formally claimed responsibility.
Ukraine has recently claimed its first gains in a counter-offensive against the Russian army in the south, saying it has recaptured several areas and destroyed multiple targets.
A US official said yesterday that Russia is buying millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea to replenish stocks depleted by months of intense fighting.
“This purchase indicates that the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions,” the US official said, on grounds of anonymity.
Western sanctions have made it harder for Moscow to acquire components to manufacture replacements, including computer chips.
President Vladimir Putin attended large-scale military exercises yesterday involving China and several Russia-friendly countries, as Moscow seeks to strengthen partnerships in Asia in the face of Western sanctions.
And the European Commission laid out the new hurdles facing Russian travellers seeking EU entry visas, in the latest punitive measures taken in response to Moscow’s invasion.
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How the media expect us to believe that the Russians are shelling themselves is borderline ridiculous.
@Michael McGrath: I don’t know they have been shooting themselves in the foot of late
@Michael McGrath: as opposed to the notion that the Ukrainians would voluntarily cut off power to a whole chuck of its own country and risk a nuclear fallout on its own lands. I’m not buying it, the Russians are the aggressor so the responsibility lies with them to leave the plant.
@Dawn Harvey: aggressors they are but they still are not shelling themselves.
@Michael McGrath: putin has already proved he does not care about his own people back in Russia nor does he care about his soldiers in Ukraine. He certainly wouldn’t care about this. Why do you think he wouldn’t?
@Michael McGrath: how can you be so sure any proof?
@Michael McGrath: The evidence points to Russian shelling of the area close to the plant. See my post below. Ukrainian artillery fire is quite accurate. If it was Ukrainian army then the Russians would have a lot of casualties and destroyed equipment in the area. They don’t.
@shligo boyzz: I obviously don’t have proof I only see what we are shown on a nightly basis nor do you have any proof nobody short of people on the ground have any proof as to what is going on over there because you certainly can’t believe either media to fully tell the truth The point I’m making was its highly unlikely the Russians are bombing themselves.
@Stephen Gill: and just for the record I am not a Russian troll. I don’t agree in any make shape or form what Putun is doing I just also don’t believe that Zelensky is the Daz white the western media is portraying him to be
@Michael McGrath: The orientation of the craters as well as the orientation of the rocket boosters which landed nearby, and the unexploded shells (buried in asphalt) all show that the ammo was fired from Russian held territory.
This was confirmed by the IAEA report
In fact there is a video doing the rounds of a Russian (apparently a sociologist) guide for the inspectors trying to explain that the ukranian shells can turn 180 deg just before impact… (breaking all laws of physics)
@Michael what amazes me is that anybody takes Putins claims seriously. There have been plenty of articles recently that actually take Putins ‘historical sense’ seriously. As if his appeal to Russian history has any value or credibility at all. This is 2022 ffs. Empires! Dmz the area, or better still Russia calls off the war. Ultimately, blame lies with the Russian people who are allowing this absurdity to continue.
@Michael McGrath: sorry Michael but I think you are wrong on this one. Everything points to the Russians, and the lame excuse that ‘they’d be mad to bomb their own’ just doesn’t hold up against the argument that Ukraine would have absolutely no benefit in risking a nuclear disaster on its own soil. Its just insanity to think they would sacrifice half their own country FOR DECADES ,sure what goal do they have in taking the risk, plus to risk of losing all the Western support they already have if they were found to be doing it. It just doesn’t hold up and until I see actual proof yo the contrary, I will continue to say its the Russians.
@Michael McGrath: Putin bombed his people to justify attacking a breakaway state and framed a group as terrorists because he didn’t get the approval to use armed forces, so why not bomb a hotel instead full of Russians to justify retaliation. Don’t let the man pull wool over your eyes.
@Michael McGrath: Your opinion of Zelensky beliefs doesn’t change facts. Russian military policy is to target civilians and infrastructure. The evidence can be seen in the news everyday since February. Not forgetting the apartment bombings and the Beslan siege where Russian forces killed civilians with rocket artillery.
@Michael McGrath:
Given that the Russians air defences have shot down their own aircraft, battlefield communications are woeful leading to friendly fire incidents and the Russians are out of guided munitions it’s entirely possible that the Russians, their allies or their paid mercenaries have hit the plant.
@Michael McGrath: it does not matter what you think of Zelensky, fact of the matter is Russia are invading another country, literally attempting to upend the post-ww2 world order. He’ll always be more in the wrong in Ukraine until he leaves Ukraine.
Propaganda is a large part of war, they don’t fight themselves, you need spirits and minds on your side.
You can let this one slide. No one should be shelling or fighting anywhere near that nuclear site, mudslinging doesn’t stop them fighting. An neutral zone is needed.
@Michael McGrath: It’s sadly necessary to point that out. Simply questioning Zelensky’s statements or the one narrative in the media does not make one anti Ukrainian or unsympathetic to civilians. It also doesn’t make you a ‘Putin fanboy/apologist’ or a ‘war supporter’.
@Stephen Gill: It’s still highly unlikely that Russia chose to use the nuclear power as a base for it’s soldiers, store it’s heavy weapons there and then to shell it from the outside to make Zelensky’s regime look bad, even if means nuclear fall out. Questioning this story isn’t unreasonable.
@Kev Mc Donnell: Were they artillery shells or precision weapons and is there a link to any decent sources? I don’t doubt possible incompetence in the field.
@Michael McGrath: In this video a Russia official claims a Russian rocket that landed on the grounds of the Zaporizhzhia power plant did a 180 degree flip after it hit the ground, so came from Ukrainian territory.
Soviet physics is best physics!
@Jim Smith: Your comment demonstrate your poor lack of knowledge on the topic as well as a poor understanding of kinetic energy and the laws of physics. Fact 1 Russia lies through it teeth. It is the one thing we can be sure of. Never mind the fact that Russian troops dug in around Chernobyl in March and stationed heavy weapons there. There are videos of rocket artillery beong fired from the vicinity of the plant. Russia shelled the plant six months ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGtiZgShuJM
Question all you like but it would be good if you could learn a few simple facts before putting your foot in your mouth. Russian troops used rocket artillery and flame throwers to break the school seige of Beslan killing 333 over half of them school children. MH17 Russia denies its shoot down despite the evidence. I said this before but I repeat it here again as a reminder.
Most Russian peoples were slaves until 1861. The current regime is a kleptocracy of former KGB siloviki (security operatives. Their roots can be traced back to the murderous secret police of Lenin and Stalin called Cheka through the NKVD, KGB, FSB, GRU through to today’s Russian ruler former KGB officer Putin.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Russia has killed many of its people as well as those killed in invasions. Bloody Sunday 1905 saw 100s killed, Lena massacre 100s more, no one has accounted for the more than a million deaths of the Red and White Terrors another quarter of a million killed in the Tambov rebellion It does not get a free pass on the Holomordor Kazakh and other famines which killed more than 6 million, Stalin’s crimes and execution of millions. The murder of 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia after Russia assisted its ally Nazi Germany to invade Poland in 1939. The rape and murders of civilians in Europe 1944–45. It is estimated that up to 2 million women were raped by the Russian army. The invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The 1979 invasion and brutal oppression of Afghanistan caused a million plus deaths mostly civilians. A war where the Russian army used mines designed to look like children’s toys. Invasion of Chechnya twice. No one has been able to calculate how many civilians were killed, Chechen sources put the figure as high as 250,000. The same tactic was used in Syria, and now Ukraine. Putin used the Chechen war to popularise himself along with the bombings of apartment blocks in 1999 blamed on the Chechens. There is deep suspicion that the bombings were a vehicle to push the war and popularise Putin. Then there is the Moscow theatre siege. or Beslan where the Russian Army used flamethrowers to kill hundreds of hostages many of them, schoolchildren. These two sieges were at worst false flags organised by the regime or at best evidence of the level of Russian incompetence. Perhaps the truth lies in between. So a vast toll of death and suffering over the last century that rivals the Nazi’s. The Russian people have not been well served by their corrupt and criminal leaders. The leaders of Russia now are as corrupt and criminal as those in the past. Russia is a world leader in death, terror, corruption and disasters.
There’s a vid only taken the other day in the UN where an official admits on camera that it was Ukraine attacking the nuclear facility
@Kevin Finnegan: No there isn’t. Ukraine isn’t attacking the nuclear facility.
@Seán Ó Briain: I believe he’s talking about this
@Wooden Spoon: I’ve listened to that twice and what I heard twice was a formulation of words designed not to actually answer the question, it was UN 101 say something but say nothing. Also the journalist asked a specific question pertaining to an alleged special forces attempt to take the plant not shelling. Furthermore the inspectors were not even in the plant when that alleged attack was supposed to have happened!
@Wooden Spoon: In this video a Russia official claims a Russian rocket that landed on the ground of the Zaporizhzhia power plant did a 180 degree flip after it hit the ground, so came from Ukrainian territory.
Soviet physics is best physics!
@Bramley Hawthorne: The evidence demonstrated that Russia is shelling the area. The Russians claimed that the projectiles are turning around in flight to make it appear that way. The standard of pro Russian trolling is getting much worse here on the Journal. It seems that because Western trolls aren’t being paid they are kicking back with poor content. https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-official-tells-inspectors-rocket-uturned-before-hitting-ukraine-plant-2022-9
@Stephen Gill: High precision weapons with a high degree of control doing u-turns to hide where they were launched from? It’s still a more plausible story than Zelensky’s tbf.
@Jim Smith: It was an unguided Uragan cargo rocket, they are not accurate. The rocket splits in half just before it reaches it target, the rocket motor section and the warhead (containing cluster bombs) separate.
The rocket motor section is seen in the video.
The Russian official claims the rocket made a bizarre 180 degree flip just before or upon hitting the ground, so while it points towards south, to Russian, it actually came from the Ukraine side.
Soviet Physics is best Physics!
@David Jordan: I’m not the pro Russian invasion, I don’t believe that anybody is the way that it turned out, the truth is hard to come by. I’m not doubting you but do you have a link to the video of the individual shell described so that at least a few hundred people might see one example of an actual documented lie from one side? I’d personally prefer if one side or the other admitted that not all battalions/individual do as they are told or expected to do. It’s cluster**** where civilians are suffering.
@David Jordan: I don’t even doubt what you read, or that it’s possible, but is there a trustworthy source for this? If some inexperienced Russian soldiers are doing stupid things and putting a nuclear power plant at risk, it’s more powerful if it’s from a trustworthy source rather than from western media. The Azov battalion went from dangerous neo nazis to ‘the heroes of our time’ for example in western media. Boris declared that media should have a ‘one narrative’. The Minsk agreements seem to never be mentioned. If Russian soldiers are putting Europe at risk of a ‘Chernobyl part 2′, it’s reasonable to ask for a legitimate source of the info.
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