Against the backdrop of the recent shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, Ukraine needs to regain control over it before winter, and Russia needs to withdraw its military and equipment from there. Peacekeepers can protect the object.
This was stated by the head of Energoatom Petro Kotin in an interview with Reuters.
Currently, about 500 Russian military personnel with heavy equipment are stationed at the NPP, and the occupiers use the territory of the station as a base. Kotin said that the best solution would be the withdrawal of Russian troops and the return of the station under the control of Ukraine before winter, and peacekeepers could be sent to protect the facility.
"Their plan is to damage all lines from Zaporizhzhya NPP. After that, it will not be connected to the Ukrainian power system. Therefore, it is necessary to urgently remove these Russians from there before the winter season, so that the infrastructure can be repaired later," explained Kotin.
According to him, during the recent shelling of the power plant, some Russian artillery shells landed near the spent fuel storage, where 174 containers of highly radioactive material are located.
"This is the most radioactive material in the entire nuclear power plant. Itʼs going to [mean] the distribution of [it] around that place, and then weʼre going to have like a radiation cloud, and then the weather will decide which direction that cloud is going to go," Cotin stated.
He also stated that Russia wanted to connect the NPP to its grid, which is a technically complex process that requires the facility to be separated from the Ukrainian system before it can be gradually connected to the Russian system.
- On August 5, Russian troops shelled the industrial site of the Zaporizhzhia NPP — they hit the high-voltage communication line of an autotransformer. After that, the station was hit by rocket systems of salvo fire. Due to this, the power unit was disconnected at the station. The nitrogen-oxygen station and the combined auxiliary building were seriously damaged. There was a risk of hydrogen leakage and sputtering of radioactive substances.
- On August 7, the Russian military again shelled the site of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the rockets hit near the dry storage of spent nuclear fuel.
- Citing sources, The Insider reported that the Russians are mining the station — the occupiers keep mines and ammunition dangerously close to the power units and under the overpasses.