• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Opinion
  • Elevenses
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
  • Food
    • All Food
    • Recipes
  • Property
  • Travel
  • Tech/Auto
  • JOBS
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home News

‘Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated:’ Ukraine power plant ‘completely out of control’

“What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”

Joe Mellor by Joe Mellor
2022-08-03 12:02
in News, World News
Credit:PA

Credit:PA

FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

The UN nuclear chief has warned that Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine “is completely out of control” and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the complex to stabilise the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in an interview with the Associated Press (AP) that the situation is getting more perilous every day at the Zaporizhzhia plant in the south-eastern city of Enerhodar, which Russian troops seized in early March, soon after their February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

“Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated” at the plant, he said.

“What is at stake is extremely serious and extremely grave and dangerous.”

⚡ Secretary of State Blinken says that Russia is using the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as a military base to fire on nearby Ukrainian forces.

"Of course, the Ukrainians cannot fire back lest there be a terrible accident involving the nuclear plant," Blinken says. pic.twitter.com/U4THn6uVsN

— Flash (@Flash43191300) August 2, 2022

Mr Grossi cited many violations of the plant’s safety, adding that it is “in a place where active war is ongoing”, near Russian-controlled territory.

The physical integrity of the plant has not been respected, he said, citing shelling at the beginning of the war when it was taken over and continuing information from Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of attacks at Zaporizhzhia.

Violence

There is “a paradoxical situation” in which the plant is controlled by Russia, but its Ukrainian staff continues to run its nuclear operations, leading to inevitable moments of friction and alleged violence, Mr Grossi said.

RelatedPosts

Katie Hopkins joins ‘Don’t Pay’ protests ahead of soaring energy bills

Brits will be charged to enter EU countries such as Spain, Germany, France and Portugal

Son of Tory donor who hosted Boris Johnson’s wedding party handed lucrative government contract

Omicron booster jab approved for use in the UK

While the IAEA has some contacts with staff, they are “faulty” and “patchy”, he said.

Mr Grossi said the supply chain of equipment and spare parts has been interrupted, “so we are not sure the plant is getting all it needs”.

The IAEA also needs to perform very important inspections to ensure that nuclear material is being safeguarded, “and there is a lot of nuclear material there to be inspected”, he said.

“When you put this together, you have a catalogue of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility,” Mr Grossi said.

1986 Chernobyl accident

“And this is why I have been insisting from day one that we have to be able to go there to perform this safety and security evaluation, to do the repairs and to assist as we already did in Chernobyl.”

The Russian capture of Zaporizhzhia renewed fears that the largest of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors could be damaged, setting off another emergency like the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the world’s worst nuclear disaster, which happened about 110 kilometres (65 miles) north of the capital Kyiv.

Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site soon after the invasion but handed control back to the Ukrainians at the end of March.

Mr Grossi visited Chernobyl on April 27 and tweeted that the level of safety was “like a ‘red light’ blinking”.

But he said that the IAEA set up “an assistance mission” at Chernobyl at that time “that has been very, very successful so far”.

The IAEA needs to go to Zaporizhzhia, as it did to Chernobyl, to ascertain the facts of what is actually happening there, to carry out repairs and inspections, and “to prevent a nuclear accident from happening”, Mr Grossi said.

The IAEA chief said he and his team need protection to get to the plant and the urgent co-operation of Russia and Ukraine.

Each side wants the international mission to go from different sites, which is understandable in light of territorial integrity and political considerations, he said, but he added there is something more urgent and that is getting the IAEA team to Zaporizhzhia.

“The IAEA, by its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant,” Mr Grossi said.

“So I’m pleading as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organisation, I’m pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed.”

Mr Grossi was in New York to deliver a keynote speech at Monday’s opening of the long-delayed high-level meeting to review the landmark 50-year-old Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and eventually achieving a nuclear-free world.

In the interview, the IAEA chief also spoke about efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers that the Trump administration abandoned in 2018 and the Biden administration has been working to renew.

Deal

Mr Grossi said there is “an ongoing effort to try to go for yet another meeting or round to explore possibilities to come to an agreement”.

He said he heard the meeting “could be soon”.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken told the NPT review conference on Monday that Iran “has either been unwilling or unable” to accept a deal to return to the 2015 agreement aimed at reining in its nuclear programme.

Mr Grossi said “there are important differences among the negotiating parties” and important verification issues related to past activities that Iran needs to address.

“It’s not impossible, it’s complex,” he said.

If the nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, is not extended, he said some IAEA inspections will continue.

But the JCPOA provides for additional transparency and inspections “which I deem as extremely important, very necessary, because of the breadth and depth of the nuclear programme in Iran”, he said.

Mr Grossi stressed that co-operating with the IAEA, answering its questions, allowing its inspectors to go wherever they need to be, is essential for Iran to build trust and confidence.

“Promises and good words will not do,” he said.

On another issue, Mr Grossi said last September’s deal in which the United States and Britain will provide Australia with nuclear reactors to power its submarines requires an agreement with the IAEA to ensure that the amount of nuclear material in the vessel when it leaves port is there when it returns.

He said Australia has not decided what type of vessel it will be getting, so while there have been preparatory talks, substantive talks cannot begin.

Because it is a military vessel, Mr Grossi said, “there are lots of confidential and protection of information measures that need to be embedded into any such agreement, so it’s very complex technologically”.

Related: Majority of Europeans support Ukraine’s membership bid

Tags: ukraine

Since you are here

Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.

Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.

Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.

If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.

To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.

The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.

The shop can be found here.

You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending
Abdollah

‘Rescue us’: Afghan teacher begs UK to help him escape Taliban

CHOMSKY: “If Corbyn had been elected, Britain would be pursuing a much more sane course”

What If We Got Rid Of Prisons?

More from TLE

El Pirata offers week-long Eat Out To Help Out discounts

British Gas boss credits Covid and Capitol riots for keeping strike out of the news

Cannes 2022 Review: Holy Spider

Best reactions to UK coming last in Eurovision and Amanda Holden’s cringe joke

In numbers: Jeremy Hunt’s reign as Britain’s longest-serving health secretary

Police investigating shocking Remembrance Sunday antisemitic graffiti attack

Younger Generation ‘Switch and Swipe’ their way through Life

Government’s record on child poverty has been ‘shameful’ and pandemic exposed ‘gross inequalities’

Video – Two beluga whales returning to open water after 10 years away from sea

Father-of-two given just two months to live now cancer free following ‘world’s first’ operation

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.