The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will increase its monitoring missions to Ukrainian facilities critical to nuclear safety, Ukraine's state nuclear energy company Energoatom reported on Sept. 13.
"There was a moment in the fall of 2022 when I think there was a genuine risk of a potential use of tactical nuclear weapons," CIA head Bill Burns said, referring to the time around Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson oblasts.
Seven weeks into Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a thinly veiled threat toward Ukraine and its allies during a Russian Security Council meeting on nuclear deterrence. "An aggression by a non-nuclear state with the participation of a nuclear state is proposed to be considered
Damage to another overhead power line will lead to an emergency at the plant, according to the state nuclear energy company.
A day prior, Rafael Grossi, the director of the IAEA, visited the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant following allegations from Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials that Ukraine has tried – or intends to try – to attack the plant amid the ongoing Ukrainian incursion in the area.
The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is located nearly 80 kilometers (49 miles) from the town of Sudzha, which was captured by Ukrainian forces in mid-August during Kyiv's ongoing incursion into Kursk Oblast.
"Nuclear power plants are designed to be resilient against technical or human failures and external events including extreme ones, but they are not built to withstand a direct military attack."
The document will be mainly focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power station in Europe, which has been under Russian occupation since March 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The loss of the station further limits the Russian-occupied nuclear plant's external capacity to detect radiation release in an emergency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a now-rare press conference with senior editors from international media outlets on June 5. Putin blamed Ukraine and the West for Russia's war crimes, and made a new round of threats and jaw-dropping lies. The Kyiv Independent examines some of the more notable statements. 'World
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest nuclear power station in Europe, has been under Russian occupation since March 2022.
Fifty-four delegations supported Ukraine's statement that Russia is jeopardizing global nuclear and radiation security at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Conference on Nuclear Security in Vienna on May 22, the Energy Ministry reported.
The Zaporizhzhia plant – the largest nuclear plant in Europe – has been under Russian occupation since March 2022. The Chornobyl plant was also occupied by Moscow's forces for 35 days at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the IAEA received reports from inspectors stationed at the plant indicating that Russia wants to restart at least one of the ZNPP reactors sometime this year.
Russian troops used first-person view (FPV) drones to "simulate an attack from Ukraine" on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Andrii Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), said on April 9.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors will meet to discuss the recent attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Reuters reported on April 9, citing four unnamed diplomats.
The U.S. expects Russia to support a resolution at the U.N. Security Council warning countries against placing nuclear weapons in orbit, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on April 4, according to Bloomberg.
Director General of the UN’s nuclear watchdog Rafael Grossi visited the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s south on Feb. 7 to check the status of the plant’s cooling systems and assess whether it can operate with a reduced staff.
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