MELITOPOL, July 3. /TASS/. The Western countries backing Kiev see the current tense situation around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) as potentially providing a pretext for getting directly involved in the Ukraine conflict, Renat Karchaa, adviser to the CEO of Russian state nuclear power corporation Rosenergoatom, told TASS on Monday.
On June 23, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, said at a session of the UN Security Council that Moscow was alarmed over Kiev’s recent pointed allegations that Russia had mined the ZNPP. Nebenzya pointed out that a visiting monitoring group from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had found no evidence at that time backing up Kiev’s absurd statements about Russia allegedly planting mines at the ZNPP.
"The counteroffensive [by Ukrainian forces] has stalled. Ukraine’s Western handlers are realizing that the country’s ruling clique is no longer capable of pulling off a win in the current situation and that the defeat of Kiev would spell defeat for them as well," Karchaa said.
"The West has raised the stakes from the very start itself and the point of no return has now been reached given current developments," he continued. "They [in the collective West] realize that Ukraine is now incapable of pulling off a win even given the insane flow of ammunition supplies and all manner of military gear currently coming in."
"Aggressive politicians in the West are ready to do virtually anything [to save the situation from pending disaster]. In their view, organizing a special [diversionary] operation at the [Zaporozhye nuclear power] plant, which could trigger a nuclear disaster, could create a so-called ‘legal floodgate’ for legitimizing NATO’s formal participation in the conflict," Karchaa warned.
This is why, in his view, Russia’s reputation has been purposely smeared in the Western media by a consistent drumbeat of accusations intended to paint it as a rogue nation capable of perpetrating an act of nuclear terrorism.
"Such an act may then be deemed a threat to Europe as a whole as well as to global society overall," Karchaa continued. "Thus, I believe that we are on the brink of more serious events that it may have initially seemed."
The high-level Rosenergoatom expert also said that Kiev’s partners were ignoring the reality that the Zaporozhye NPP is owned by Russia and is currently located on Russian territory and is within the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation.
"If before they were spreading lies aimed at smearing Russia and portraying us as a universal evil, now they are pursuing such lies for a different purpose," Karchaa noted. "They have started preparing the global community to point the finger at the guilty party before any event has even taken place."
"This is not a provocation, [false flag or act of incitement,] because a provocation is something that is presented as an imitation of a threat… This time, they are not imitating a threat but are actually intending to carry it out. In any case, the probability of this [a Western-sponsored false flag nuclear incident at the ZNPP] is as high as never before," the Rosenergoatom expert warned.
Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant
The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, located in the city of Energodar, has a capacity of about 6 GW and is Europe’s largest. It has been controlled by Russian troops since late February 2022. Since then, Ukrainian army units have periodically shelled both residential areas in Energodar and the premises of the ZNPP itself, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).