For almost two and a half years, we have been teetering on the brink of a nuclear disaster

Since Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, not only Ukraine, but the whole world is in danger.

“Since then, the threat has always been significant and remains so today,” Olena Lapenko points out in a comment for Digi24: https://bit.ly/4cv3oeE.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has already recorded 150 gross violations of the Zaporizhzhia NPP operation under Russian occupation, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has recorded deployment of the Russian military equipment and mining of the ZNPP territory by the Russians.

Regular losses of external power supply and lack of water resources supplying the station from the Kakhovka Reservoir, which became shallow after Russia blew up its dam, appear to be extremely threatening.

DiXi Group’s General Manager for Security and Resilience states: “Russia’s setting fire to the cooling tower of the ZNPP on August 11 seems to me to be a warning and another stage of Putin’s ongoing nuclear blackmail.”

We cannot ignore the risk of a nuclear disaster, which the terrorist state is capable of causing, emphasizes the expert. Is it possible for us to avoid it? One optimal way out is seen.

Olena Lapenko points out: “The Ukrainian peace formula provides for the transfer of the ZNPP to the control of its legal operator Ukraine. We must put pressure on the Russians to return the facility and stop using it as a shield in their war of aggression.”

The IAEA resolution of March 7, in which the Russians are required to withdraw from the ZNPP and hand it over to its owner, Ukraine, is a telling example of such pressure. However, it should be strengthened, primarily with anti-Russian sanctions.

The return of the Zaporizhzhia NPP to Ukraine’s control will significantly reduce the risks of a nuclear disaster, but it will not completely eliminate them as long as the war continues and Russian weapons can strike all over the territory of our country, in particular, on other nuclear facilities. Let’s recall how on September 19, 2022, a Russian missile exploded 300 meters from the reactor of the South Ukrainian NPP, and how last year on the night of October 25, the Khmelnytskyi NPP was the clear target of an enemy drone.

Only Ukraine’s victory and the punishment of Russia will return real peace and security, nuclear in particular, to everyone.