explainer
World powers are on high alert after the latest drone attack on a Russian nuclear facility hit the containment structure of a nuclear reactor.
Russia's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is at risk of an accident due to recent drone attacks, according to the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.
Here's what we know:
What caused the warning?
Since April 7, Europe's largest nuclear power facility has been under a series of drone attacks.
The latest attack, which occurred on Sunday, set a “very dangerous precedent” as the reactor's containment structure was attacked, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said. Officials from the agency have been dispatched to the facility.
Moscow and Kiev have accused each other of attacks on areas occupied by Russian forces shortly after the Russian military entered Ukraine in earnest in February 2022.
Last week, all six units of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine were switched to cold shutdown mode for the first time since 2022.
What was the world's reaction?
On Monday, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) cited concerns of a nuclear holocaust, with Grossi calling for an end to “such reckless attacks” on nuclear power plants.
“Fortunately, this time there was no accident due to radioactive materials, but the risks at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where nuclear safety is already compromised, are significantly increased,” he said.
“We are coming dangerously close to a nuclear disaster. We must not allow ourselves to become complacent, relying on the roll of the dice to decide what will happen tomorrow,” Grossi said.
“Russia is not concerned about these risks,” U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood told the Security Council, adding: “If we were, we would not continue to have coercive control over nuclear power plants.”
“In recent months, such attacks have not only resumed, but have significantly intensified,” Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Neventsia said, blaming Ukraine for the attacks.
Ukraine's Ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kislysha, called the attack a “well-planned false flag operation by the Russian Federation” designed to distract the world from Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor. claimed to be a thing.
China's Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations, Geng Shuang, urged all parties concerned to strictly adhere to the minimum standards of nuclear safety and resolutely prevent a man-made nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, adhering to the “principle of indivisible security.” He called on them to “persist.”
Why is Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant important?
The Soviet-designed facility is the largest in Europe and one of the 10 largest in the world, and before the war it generated half of Ukraine's nuclear electricity.
The power plant's total generating capacity is approximately 6,000 megawatts, which is equivalent to approximately 4 million homes.
In the event of a radioactive leak or explosion, the entire European continent could be contaminated, experts recently told Al Jazeera.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of using the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to launch “nuclear terrorism.”
How factories became the center of war
The area that bears the same name as the city of Zaporizhzhia has been the site of active fighting since the early days of Russia's war with Ukraine.
On March 3, 2022, the eighth day of Russia's war in Ukraine, for the first time in history, a working nuclear power plant was occupied by military forces.
In the days and weeks after the occupation, Moscow sent hundreds of military personnel and members of the Chechen National Guard to the station.
Since then, it has been used as part of information warfare by warring sides.
President Zelenskiy sounded the alarm in June and again in July of this year about the possibility of a Russian plot to sabotage the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Meanwhile, Russian authorities have also repeatedly accused Kiev of planning “acts of sabotage” in Zaporizhia.
