VIENNA, September 29. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops have conducted more than 30 shelling attacks targeting the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, its premises and related infrastructure in the past two and a half months, a Russian diplomat said on Thursday.
"According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s data, Ukrainian armed forces have shelled the territory of the ZNPP and its infrastructure more than 30 times in the past two and a half months, firing over 120 artillery shells and using at least 16 kamikaze drones," Russian Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told the 66th session of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference.
He went on to say that the attacks continued even during the recent IAEA mission visit.
"We applaud the fact that with our active assistance, the IAEA mission was able to visit the Zaporozhye NPP. It was not easy, there were scores of people who tried to impede the visit," he said. "Now we have started to get more objective information about the state of things at the plant."
Nevertheless, "attempts are being made to interpret even the report of the director general in some bizarre way, looking for something in it that is not there," the diplomat noted.
"We fully support the report’s main conclusion, which says that the physical integrity of the plant remains the most pressing problem as of today, as regular shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces continues.
Ulyanov added that the station’s workers have to fulfill their professional duty under constant shelling and psychological pressure from Ukrainian special services, who intimidate them and their family members by phone and on social networks.
The Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, is located in the city of Energodar. Russian forces took control of the plant in March 2022. Since then, Ukrainian troops occasionally shell Energodar’s residential neighborhoods and the power plant itself, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.
In early September, an IAEA mission led by Director General Rafael Grossi visited the station. Later, the Agency published a report calling for the establishment of a protection zone around the power plant in order to prevent a nuclear disaster caused by the ongoing hostilities.