Ukraine to submit draft resolution on nuclear safety to UN General Assembly

Kyiv is planning to submit to the U.N. General Assembly a draft resolution on nuclear safety and the security of Ukraine's nuclear facilities, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X on July 3.

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, Zelensky said.

Russia's occupation of the plant has led to heightened nuclear safety risks and Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of using the plant as a launching site for drone attacks, presenting a serious security hazard.

Monitoring teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been based at the facility on rotation since September 2022, but Russian authorities still deny IAEA inspectors full access to the plant.

Zelensky met Dennis Francis, the President of the 78th session of the U.N. General Assembly. The visit in Kyiv marked the first visit to Ukraine by the head of the General Assembly in nearly 30 years.

"I thanked him for supporting the first peace summit and its final communique. One of the practical outcomes of the summit could be a new resolution on nuclear safety and the security of Ukraine's nuclear facilities, particularly the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant," Zelensky said.

Throughout its occupation, the plant has been repeatedly disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid due to Russian attacks on the country's energy infrastructure.

Energoatom said that the plant has experienced eight complete blackouts and one partial shutdown since the beginning of the full-scale war.

Shelling destroys radiation monitoring station at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, IAEA reports

The loss of the station further limits the Russian-occupied nuclear plant’s external capacity to detect radiation release in an emergency.

The Kyiv IndependentAbbey Fenbert