More than 40 countries of the world are asking Russia to leave the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant: the station is on the verge of disaster - ForumDaily
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More than 40 countries of the world are asking Russia to leave the territory of the Zaporizhzhya NPP: the plant is on the verge of disaster

An appeal to Russia on the withdrawal of troops from the Zaporozhye NPP was issued on behalf of 42 countries: including all EU countries, Australia, Great Britain Georgia, Iceland, Canada, Liechtenstein, Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, North Macedonia, USA, Montenegro, South Korea and Japan, says Voice of America.

Photo: IStock

The appeal was published on the official website of the European Union on August 14. Russia occupied the largest nuclear power plant in Europe in early March, and Ukrainian personnel continue to work at it. In recent weeks, shells have fallen on the territory of the station several times after artillery shelling, Kyiv and Moscow blame each other for this.

The text calls on Russia to withdraw its armed forces and all unauthorized personnel from the station, from its immediate environs and from all over Ukraine.

“The deployment of Russian military personnel and weapons at a nuclear facility is unacceptable and violates the principles of safety, security and safeguards to which all members of the International Atomic Energy Agency have pledged to comply,” the text reads. The appeal notes that the presence of the Russian military prevents Ukraine from complying with its obligations to maintain nuclear safety, and the IAEA from fulfilling its powers as a nuclear regulator at the facility.

Moscow says the Russian military is stationed at the station only to guard it during the war. Moscow is calling on IAEA inspectors to visit the sanction, saying that the Ukrainian side is hindering the visit. Kyiv says Russia must withdraw troops from the station so that the visit can take place according to Ukrainian law.

The UN called on Russia and Ukraine to organize a demilitarized zone around the station. A similar appeal was made by Ukraine, supported by several countries, including the United States. Moscow does not support this proposal.

The Russian army deployed multiple launch rocket systems, as well as other weapons and equipment, on the territory of the Zaporozhye NPP, reports with the BBC. High-voltage transmission lines at the station have already suffered from shelling. And this, as experts explain, is a direct path to a nuclear accident.

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If you break the remaining lines, the reactors will begin to heat up rapidly. In this case, there are two options for the development of events. Either the Russians who control the nuclear power plant will be able to transfer the power of the nuclear power plant, powering their own energy system from them, or the threat of a nuclear catastrophe will begin to grow rapidly.

For more than a week now, since August 5, the territory of the ZNPP has been constantly shelled. And the Ukrainian authorities claim that the Russians themselves are doing it.

According to Prime Minister of Ukraine Denis Shmygal, “the mining of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and the shelling of this facility by the occupiers have all the signs of nuclear terrorism on the part of Russia.”

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that a Russian-triggered nuclear power plant disaster would mean “essentially the use of nuclear weapons” - just without a nuclear strike.

The IAEA, which is tasked with monitoring the situation at nuclear power plants around the world on behalf of the UN, has already expressed serious concern about these risks and called on the parties to the conflict to exercise “maximum restraint” near the Zaporizhia NPP. Access to the station itself is closed to IAEA experts.

Moscow, on the other hand, claims that Ukrainian troops are shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, which gives the Russians a formal reason to keep their military and representatives of Rosatom at the station.

The correspondent managed to talk to one of the engineers working at the Zaporozhye NPP. He talks about regular shelling of the station's facilities from the Russian side. According to him, they shoot, in particular, from one of the industrial sites of the ZNPP, previously used to place steam generators. He also confirms the mining of the engine rooms of nuclear reactors.

There is an acute shortage of personnel at the station. And those employees who continue to go to work are terribly tired, depressed and scared.

The name and position of the interlocutor are not disclosed for security reasons. However, the statements made by the engineer represent socially significant information and are confirmed by the testimonies of other employees of the Zaporozhye NPP, with whom we managed to communicate earlier.

Shelling and the threat of disaster

The engineer says that firstly, there is a huge amount of military equipment of the Russian Federation at the Zaporizhia NPP. They drove most of the engineering vehicles, Urals and other vehicles under the transition galleries along which personnel walk from special buildings to power units. In everyday life, these galleries are called “overpasses”.

The deeper into the station territory, the more interesting objects can be found under the overpass. The second special corps sometimes has Grad combat vehicles with fully loaded ammunition.

There is an area within the station where heavy metal structures such as fresh steam generators are stored. Russian artillery installations are now located on it, which are shelling the Zaporizhia NPP, simulating “arrivals” from Nikopol.

“I personally saw the shelling from this site, I saw the exit from there and where it landed. From the moment of “exit” to the moment of “arrival” no more than three seconds passed. Each of the ZNPP employees saw and heard this. And he knows where he’s flying from and where,” he says.

He says that Rosatom representatives have been asking workers for two months to give them tours of the Zaporizhia NPP. They were very interested in how everything worked. They said something about sharing experiences. Then they demanded maps of Zaporizhzhya NPP, even landscape maps. And then the shelling began. “They know where to shoot so that it hurts, but is not fatal,” said a station representative.

“They, like guards in a pre-trial detention center or FSB officers, beat you so that there are no bruises, but you remember forever,” said the station worker.

A nitrogen-oxygen station was recently set up. On the one hand, getting rid of such an object is a disaster for the station, as the engineer says, but on the other hand, this object does not greatly affect the correct operation of the power units.
But, most importantly, the Russian military is destroying power lines connecting the station with the Ukrainian energy system, under the guise that “the Ukrainian Armed Forces are allegedly doing this.”

The consequences of such shelling are not too critical for Ukraine as a whole. But fatal for ZNPP.

A nuclear power plant cannot run to nowhere, as the engineer says. It must supply electricity somewhere. If suddenly all consumers disappear, the station “chokes”, the power units are switched off in an emergency, and the so-called “blackout” begins.

This means that no power unit outputs power “outside”. This may seem like no big deal, but there is one “but”. The power unit needs electricity to run the pumps that cool the nuclear fuel in the reactor or spent fuel pool. This is a very long process.

He warned that without this cooling there would be a terrible nuclear disaster. “We need at least one power unit to work for any power system. Firstly, this will give us a chance to someday launch other power units. Secondly, this is necessary to prevent a nuclear disaster. They know it. And what are they doing? They break the high-voltage lines connecting the Zaporizhia NPP with the Ukrainian energy system. And at the same time they tell us: “If the neo-Nazis from the Ukrainian Armed Forces break your last line, we are ready to provide you with help,” says the engineer from the station.

Russia promised to give them a plan to “connect” the Zaporizhzhya NPP with the Russian energy system through the Zaporizhzhya NPP-Melitopol-Dzhankoy line.
“If we suddenly “sit down to 0,” that is, a “blackout” happens, we will need any power from the “side” to power the pumps for cooling the nuclear fuel,” he says.

That is, the Russians deliberately organize a “blackout” in order to “help” later. Right now it is very close. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after tomorrow, they will break the last line, as he says.

If the station cannot produce power, it stops. But you can't just turn off the station. It takes a lot of energy to power the pumps to cool the reactor. This is the first scenario, as the engineer says.

The second scenario: they can blow up the engine room at the operating power unit. “Technically, we are fully prepared for this contingency. We know what to do, we have the means to eliminate it.

But we were very tired. People are exhausted and scared,” he says.

Nuclear fuel is always hot. Even if it is spent, it contains decaying elements, and therefore there is always an energy release. If heat is not removed from nuclear fuel, it will overheat. When fuel overheats, it expands, just like any material when heated. The fuel rods in which it is placed crack. Quite a lot of radioactive gases are released into the water and atmosphere. This is the same radioactive iodine.

In addition to gases, the remains of spent fuel and a bunch of radioactive isotopes of various metals with a very long half-life get into the water.

It would not be like Chernobyl. This is closer to what happened at Fukushima.

There is no help from the world in this situation. “Every year missions from the IAEA and other international nuclear energy organizations come to us. But when this happened, they all stand aside. The most we hear is words of “deep concern,” says a station worker.

Disaster occurred at Fukushima because the earthquake and tsunami stopped the reactor's ability to cool. As a result, a steam explosion occurred in the core, the confinement, that is, the sealed zone of the reactor, was destroyed. Radioactive substances got out.

This scenario could be repeated at Zaporizhzhya NPP: but the reasons are not a natural disaster. This is shelling by the Russian army.

“We have carried out a number of upgrades to prevent a Fukushima scenario at the Zaporozhye NPP. Half of these security systems are powered by personnel. And today he is forced to flee Energodar, because his own real safety comes first. People are under constant fire. And this can play a fatal role. This is not a sausage shop. This is a nuclear facility. What the Russian army is perpetrating here is nuclear terrorism. The state of the staff here is beyond acceptable. And the number of people being evacuated is very large. We now have about one tenth of the number of staff we should have. Over the past few weeks, when the shelling began, almost half of the team left. Our shift changes are now taking place under fire. At the entrance station there is a lot of harassment and mockery. But we continue to work,” says the engineer.

Station staff exhausted

Representatives of Rosatom are always the first to be evacuated from the industrial site if it gets hot, according to a plant worker.

“Rosatom personnel sit in storage facilities during shelling, but some Russian military personnel, when, as they say, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are “shelling” the station, calmly walk around the territory, knowing that they are shooting. It is Rosatom representatives who tell their military where to shoot so that it doesn’t “hurt” but is loud. They went on “excursions” for two to three months to “exchange experiences,” the engineer reports.

He reports that the Russians do not communicate with the station personnel because the station personnel do not communicate with them.
From the first day of the occupation, personnel have been disappearing, as the station engineer says. People are kidnapped according to a certain algorithm. First, the public activists of Energodar. Next - ATO participants and their relatives. Next - everyone who identifies themselves as Ukrainian.

The Russian occupiers took away those who stood at the forefront of the city's defense. Energodarovites carried out actions at the checkpoint at the entrance to the city against the Russian army and the occupation of the city. Those who were in the forefront immediately found themselves in the basement. Others were surrendered under torture - and so on down the chain, as he reports.

“They torture them to death. Let me give you an example. Recently, the Russian military announced that there were abandoned weapons located in the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant's spray pools (water cooling pools). They wanted to force our regular scuba diver from the hydro department to dive into the spray pools and look for weapons. He refused. He was beaten to death. People who had “short conversations” with the occupiers simply remain silent upon their return and do not answer any questions,” the engineer said.

He says that the collective is depressed. They live in an occupation without normal communications, without shops, ATMs, civilization. We buy food from the trunks of cars in the markets, people are constantly afraid, according to a station worker.

“We walk past the Russian military every day. If there are no complaints against us, they don’t bother us. Previously, women were treated more favorably at the checkpoint when crossing the Zaporizhia NPP checkpoint, but now their morning search and check at the checkpoint is a daily test. But our women are the bravest in the world. At the beginning of May such an incident occurred. Our girls were leaving after their shift, and Rosatom workers decided to look after them. They responded very sharply. This was followed by a large-scale search. And we received letters about how it is possible and how not to communicate with Russians,” he says.

Prices for Russian products are sky-high. Nobody buys Russian products. “We overpay two or three prices for Ukrainian products, because Russian products are impossible to eat,” says the worker.

The station workers are paid by Energoatom to their bank cards. But the Russian occupiers cut them off from using electronic money. All terminals in the city are disabled, only cash is accepted everywhere. And you can withdraw cash from the card only for a percentage from dealers.

10% is a normal rate, as the engineer said.

Statement from Energoatom

Energoatom reports that the periodic shelling of Zaporizhzhya NPP by Russian troops from the MLRS since last week has entailed a serious risk to the safe operation of the plant.

In particular, as a result of the attack, emergency protection went off at one of the ZNPP power units. As a result, one of the three operating power units is now offline, reports economic truth.

The shelling also seriously damaged the nitrogen-oxygen station, the combined auxiliary building, the pumping station for domestic wastewater, as well as the 750 kV open switchgear (VRP-750).

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“The occupants fired at the fire station, located outside the territory of the Zaporizhzhya NPP and intended to protect it from fires and extinguish them in case of emergencies at the plant. There remain risks of hydrogen leakage and spraying of radioactive substances, and the fire danger is high,” Energoatom added.

Also, three radiation monitoring sensors around the Zaporizhzhya NPP storage facility were damaged.
The occupiers damaged the switchgear at the ZNPP: the risk of radiation leakage and fire is high

“ZNPP is still occupied and controlled by the Russian military. Considering that it is impossible to foresee the actions of the invaders, the threat to the physical security of the station remains,” the message concluded.

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