IAEA chief Rafael Grossi says Kursk nuclear plant’s proximity to combating is “extraordinarily critical.”
A nuclear energy plant in western Russia the place combating is raging between Russian and Ukrainian forces is weak to a critical accident as a result of it lacks a protecting dome that would protect it from missiles, drones and artillery, the top of the United Nations nuclear watchdog stated.
Rafael Grossi, director common of the Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA), visited the Kursk nuclear energy plant on Tuesday outdoors the city of Kurchatov in Russia’s Kursk area, the place Ukrainian forces crossed the border three weeks in the past and Russia is combating to drive them out.
“The hazard or risk of a nuclear accident has arisen close to right here,” Grossi advised reporters.
Grossi stated the RBMK-type facility – the identical mannequin because the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, which witnessed the world’s worst civilian nuclear catastrophe in 1986 – lacks the containment dome and protecting construction typical of contemporary nuclear energy crops.
“Because of this the reactor core, which comprises nuclear materials, is protected solely by a traditional roof, making it extraordinarily uncovered and fragile, for instance, within the occasion of an artillery strike, a drone or a missile,” he defined.
“We subsequently contemplate {that a} nuclear energy plant of this sort so shut to some extent of contact or a army entrance is a particularly critical occasion that we take very critically.”
Final week, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of attempting to assault the Kursk plant. Ukraine has but to answer the accusations that it attacked the ability.
“I used to be knowledgeable concerning the affect of the drones. I used to be proven a few of the stays of those and indicators of the affect they’d,” Grossi stated, with out saying who was accountable.
Grossi stated the aim of his go to was to attract the world’s consideration to the scenario and to say: “Mainly, by no means, ever, ought to a nuclear energy plant be attacked in any means.”
The IAEA has repeatedly warned of the hazards of combating round nuclear crops since Russia’s large-scale army offensive in Ukraine started in February 2022.
‘A harmful scenario’
Defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer advised Al Jazeera that continued assaults close to the Kursk nuclear plant may change the course of the struggle.
“For the time being, the entrance strains are very distant, tens of kilometres from the Kursk nuclear energy plant. It doesn’t appear that the Ukrainians are attempting to succeed in there or assault it, however after all it’s a harmful scenario,” he stated.
“The scenario on the northern entrance in Kursk, [the neighbouring region of] Belgorod isn’t totally beneficial to Russia. The Ukrainians have the initiative there. Russia has the initiative within the south. [of Ukraine] “In Donbas, either side are combating one another,” he stated.
“There’s nonetheless a risk that the Ukrainians will attempt to develop their Kursk bridgehead and transfer their forces in the direction of Belgorod throughout the border.”
Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos, reporting from kyiv, stated the Russians know they need to seize Pokrovsk within the Donbass area as a result of it’s the “absolute prize” in Donetsk Oblast, a part of which pro-Moscow separatists have managed since 2014.
“Whoever controls it, controls Donetsk itself. It’s a provide route, a logistics hub, a railway hub and it is important that Russia takes it and Ukraine defends it,” he stated.
“The Russians are bringing in reinforcements to bolster this advance as a result of there’s a restricted period of time for advances and offensives to proceed.”
