MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/. Any security deal for the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) should include control over limiting the ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to conduct shelling attacks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Tuesday.
"If we get information that a reasonable arrangement for organizing this regime at the Zaporozhye NPP has a chance of being implemented, and this includes control and proper verification that Ukraine’s armed forces will not be able to carry out such bombardments, then the timeframe of the trip [by IAEA Head Rafael Grossi] to Russia can be quickly agreed upon," the senior diplomat said when speaking to the lower house of Russia’s parliament.
IAEA Director General Grossi said at the Mediterranean Dialogues international conference in Rome on December 2 that an agreement on creating a security zone around the Zaporozhye NPP could be reached shortly. Alexey Likhachyov, who heads Rosatom, the Russian civilian nuclear power corporation, earlier said that the security arrangement being discussed with Grossi ruled out any bombardments of the Zaporozhye nuke plant.
On November 17, the IAEA adopted a new resolution on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, calling on Russia "to immediately abandon its baseless claims of ownership of the plant." Russia and China voted against this resolution while India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia abstained from voting. Russia’s permanent mission in Vienna chided the IAEA’s resolution as going beyond the UN nuclear watchdog’s mandate.
The Zaporozhye nuclear plant located in the town of Energodar is the largest in Europe and has a capacity of about 6,000 MW. It used to generate a quarter of all electric power in Ukraine. In March 2022, the Zaporozhye facility was placed under the Russian army’s control. Since then, the Ukrainian military has been periodically bombarding both Energodar’s residential quarters and the premises of the Zaporozhye nuke plant, employing drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.