VIENNA, April 7. /TASS/. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi has branded a drone attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) as reckless and urged to stop such actions against this facility, according to the agency’s page on the X social network.
"This is a clear violation of the basic principles for protecting Europe’s largest NPP. Such reckless attacks significantly increase the risk of a major nuclear accident and must cease immediately," Grossi said.
The agency also reported that the damage to the nuclear facility had not impacted nuclear safety but noted that “this is a serious incident w/potential to undermine integrity of the reactor’s containment system.”
On Sunday, Ukrainian troops carried out a series of unprecedented strikes on the ZNPP’s premises, wounding three employees and hitting the dome of one of the power units. The facility’s press service specified that the radiation background at the nuclear power plant remains within normal limits.
Located in Energodar, the Zaporozhye nuclear facility, with roughly 6GW of capacity, is the largest of its kind in Europe. Russia took control of the plant on February 28, 2022, in the first days of its special military operation in Ukraine. Since then, units of the Ukrainian army have periodically conducted shelling both of residential districts in nearby Energodar and the premises of the nuclear plant itself, by means of drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS). In most cases, air defense systems repel the attacks, although several times shells hit infrastructure facilities and the vicinity of a nuclear waste storage depot. In order to protect the ZNPP against shelling attacks, engineering structures, forming a safety net of sorts, have been built on its premises.