Nuclear watchdog’s worries grow over Ukraine plant safety

Kyiv: The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog expressed growing anxiety about the safety of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant near the front lines of fighting in Ukraine after the Moscow-installed governor of the area ordered the evacuation of the city where most plant staff live.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi spent months unsuccessfully trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the war from causing a possible radiation leak.

Europe’s largest nuclear plant is located next to the occupied city of Enerhodar. Ukraine has regularly fired at the Russian side of the lines, while Russia has repeatedly shelled Ukrainian-held communities across the Dnieper River.

The fighting has intensified as Ukraine prepares to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to reclaim ground taken by Russia.

Ukrainian authorities on Sunday said that a 72-year-old woman was killed and three others were wounded when Russian forces fired more than 30 shells at the city of Nikopol, which is almost directly opposite the plant.

“The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous,” Grossi warned Saturday.

Grossi said the evacuations of civilians from Enerhodar and 17 other communities that Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor of Ukraine’s partially occupied Zaporizhzhia province, ordered Friday suggested a further escalation.

“I’m extremely concerned about the very real nuclear safety and security risks facing the plant, he said. Although none of the plant’s six reactors are operating because of the war, the station needs a reliable power supply for cooling systems essential to preventing a potentially catastrophic radiation disaster.

Analysts have for months pointed to the southern Zaporizhzhia region as one of the possible targets of Ukraine’s expected spring counteroffensive, speculating that Kyiv’s forces might try to choke off Russia’s “land corridor” to the Crimean Peninsula and split Russian forces in two by pressing on to the Azov Sea coast.

Balitsky said Ukraine’s forces had intensified attacks on the area in the past several days. Some of the fiercest ongoing fighting is in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces are still clinging to a position on the western outskirts despite Russia trying to take the city for more than nine months.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that Moscow’s forces had captured two more districts in the city’s west and northwest, but provided no further details.