“The visit of the CEO Raphael Mario Grosssey to Kiev in the beginning of the summer became a painful demonstration of how much the nuclear agency supports Moscow’s political interests in its illegal occupation of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and in the Plans for Restarting the NPP.”, – WRITE: www.pravda.com.ua
The facts were already widely covered in the media last week, but a short summary will help you understand the essence.
On May 27, Greenpeace Ukraine published satellite images of active construction of electricity between Melitopol and Mariupol. It is the illegal activity of Russia in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine within the broader plan for connection of the NPP to the Russian power system. In response, Raphael Grosssey stated in Kiev that he did not agree with Greenpeace, and that the agency did not observe any activity at the station that would indicate the inevitable restart. It looked like a focus: “Look at my hand – in my sleeve nothing”while the other hand makes a 150 km power line disappears in the eyes of the public.
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But no one claimed that the restart would take place very soon or that the station was preparing for it. Restarting ZPP is a long process, the construction of electricity is only one of the signals. By the way, the Russians continue to install new electrical supports in the occupied territories.
After his visit to Kiev, Grossi went to Kaliningrad to meet with Alexei Likhachev – the head of the criminal Russian nuclear enterprise “Rosatom”. Suddenly Likhachev reported that the construction of the pumping station has already begun. This not only contradicts Grossi’s statements made a few days earlier, but also degrades it publicly. It was not a saying: Russian diplomacy officially announced the beginning of construction of the pumping station Secretariat IAEA in Vienna.
Grossy may ask Likhachev to allow three representatives of the IAEA who are currently at the station to visit the western part of the turbine shops. Russia still denies them without explaining the reasons. One can only guess that the preparation for the construction of a large pumping station is conducted there – outside the satellite field, inside one of the giant premises.
Why does Likhachev so humiliate Grossi in public? This is a prime example of how Russia tries to demonstrate its power. If Russia does not want the IAEA team to get to the station from Ukraine – they simply fire them, as it happened in December last year, and are forced to go to the NPP next time through Moscow. These are the stages of the implementation of Russia’s plan to impose its false version of events and work on the recognition of the NPP as “Russian”, occupied territories as “Russian” and the creation of another “fake” fake “.
Russia is not interested in generating electricity at the ZPP. Reactors restart is political symbolism. Even the partial launch of one of the six reactors and connecting it to Russia – in the Kremlin perception will be another step to recognize that this territory is already “their”. In addition, one working reactor in Ukraine is a huge radiological risk that Russia will be able to use for the blackmail of Ukraine and the European Union.
The Russian state has already proven that it is indifferent to nuclear security and it can do anything. At the same time, she needs an IDA to restart at least some likeness of legitimacy.
This is a clear strategy for Russia – to attack international law and impose its dominance. We see how Russia instructs the IDA for its imperial expansion in Europe. The painful truth is that Raphael Grosssey does not oppose Russia’s plans and does not even try to do so. He may genuinely believe that his diplomatic strategy for avoiding criticism of many years of nuclear security violations will save the world from a catastrophe. He is wrong. But it also coincides with his personal ambitions – to become the UN Secretary General next year. And this requires Moscow support.
And even deeper – because the IAEA has been supporting the export of Russian nuclear technologies in the world for decades: more than 80% of all nuclear reactors are now – Russian. And half of the world’s processing capacity is under the control of Russia.
That is why the European Union has not yet imposed sanctions against Rosatom, which is why French and German companies continue to cooperate with this criminal enterprise, which is why EU countries continue to buy nuclear fuel from Russia. And that is why any new enlargement of nuclear energy in the world-directly or indirectly-enhances Russia, which skillfully transformed its nuclear advantage into a political tool.
This tangle of dark interests is too powerful to cut it in one stlo. But one priority is obvious: Russia should be stopped in its illegal restarting reactors at the ZPP and forcing it to refuse to occupy a nuclear facility. And it is possible. There are huge technical obstacles to restart – and all efforts should be made to ensure that Russia and its criminal nuclear corporation “Rosatom” cannot overcome them.
The world’s interests of “Rosatom” have almost not been affected by its unprecedented role in the capture of the largest nuclear station in Europe, and now in the plans of restart, which can lead to a catastrophe more than Fukushima or Chernobyl. Russia’s nuclear industry should be immediately subjected to rigid global sanctions. The countries that trade with it need to realize that they are doing business with a state that practices nuclear terrorism in the center of Europe.
Ukraine is not alone in its efforts to stop Russia. An important statement made on June 12 in Vienna with 47 countries together with Ukraine clearly signals: no restart of the reactors to the ZPP is acceptable until the station is under Russian occupation. It is a message not only to Moscow, but also by the General Director of the IAEA. Because it has a huge impact on Moscow – but does not use it. Russia’s global nuclear trade requires IAEA approval.
Moscow considers the occupation of Zaporizhzhya NPP with its strategic triumph. It should change. The international community should turn this occupation into a nightmare for the Kremlin – to use all economic, political, diplomatic and other levers. Last Russian occupation of the ZPP is an unacceptable option for developments.
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