UN agency calls for safety zone around Ukraine nuclear plant

catastrophe in a country still scarred by the Chernobyl disaster.

"We are playing with fire, and something very, very

catastrophic could take place," Rafael Grossi, head of the International

Atomic Energy Agency, warned the U.N. Security Council, days after leading an inspection

visit to the plant.

In a detailed report on its visit, the IAEA said shelling

around the Europe's largest nuclear power plant should stop immediately.

"This requires agreement by all relevant parties to the establishment of a

nuclear safety and security protection zone" around the plant, it said.

At the Security Council meeting, U.N. Secretary General

Antonio Guterres likewise demanded that Russian and Ukrainian forces commit to halting

all military activity around the plant and agree on a "demilitarized

perimeter."

Guterres said this would include "a commitment by

Russian forces to withdraw all military personnel and equipment from that

perimeter and a commitment by Ukrainian forces not to move into it."

Russian claim

Asked by reporters about establishing a demilitarized zone,

Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said the proposal "is not

serious."

"The Ukrainians will immediately step in and ruin the

whole thing. We're defending, we're protecting the station," he said.

"In fact, it is not militarized. There is no equipment at the

station."

Speaking to journalists later, Nebenizia said Russia

wanted to see details of the proposals for demilitarized and protection

zones.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country

needs to look at the specifics of the protection-zone

proposal and could support the measure if it envisions the demilitarization

of the plant.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy praised

the IAEA report's "clear references" to the presence of Russian

troops and military equipment at the plant. He urged the agency to explicitly

back Kyiv's long-held position that Russian forces need to withdraw from the

facility and its surroundings.

Shelling continued around the plant on Tuesday, a day after

it was again knocked

off Ukraine's electrical grid and put in the precarious position of relying

on its own power to run its safety systems.

Overheating threat

Normally the plant relies on power from the outside to run

the critical cooling systems that keep its reactors and its spent fuel from

overheating. A loss of those systems could lead to a meltdown or other release

of radiation.

"For radiation protection professionals, for the

Ukrainian and even the Russian people, and those of central Europe, this is a

very worrying time — and that's an understatement," said Paul Dorfman, a

nuclear safety expert at the University of Sussex in England.

Russia and Ukraine accused each other of shelling Enerhodar,

the city where the plant is situated. The Ukrainians also charged that the

Kremlin's forces fired on a town across the Dnieper River from the power

station.

The Ukrainian mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, reported a

powerful blast in the city around midday. The explosion left the city of 53,000

cut off from its power and water supplies. It wasn't immediately clear what

caused the blast.

World leaders have called for the demilitarization of the

plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the

war but is being run by Ukrainian engineers.

In its report, the IAEA did not assign blame for the

shelling at the plant. The agency has sought to keep out of the political fray.

Backup supply line

It did note that on several occasions, the plant lost, fully

or in part, its off-site power supply because of military activity in the area.

The U.N. agency said a backup power supply line should be reestablished and asked

that "all military activities that may affect the power supply systems

end."

In addition, the IAEA warned that the Ukrainian staff

operating the plant under Russian military occupation is "under constant

high stress and pressure, especially with the limited staff available" — a

situation that could "lead to increased human error with implications for

nuclear safety."

It recommended that "an appropriate work environment,

including family support," be reestablished.

The IAEA also said the staff is not being given unrestricted

access to some parts of the plant and must get permission from the Russian

occupying forces to reach the cooling ponds where spent fuel is kept. Grossi

expressed concern that that could hamper the staff's response in an emergency.

The report said the team saw Russian military personnel,

vehicles and equipment at various locations, including several military trucks

on the floor of two turbine halls. It called for "the removal of vehicles

from areas that could interfere with the operation of safety and security

systems and equipment."

Two inspectors from the IAEA mission remained at the plant,

a decision welcomed by Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.

Fire caused by shelling

"There are Russian troops now who don't understand

what's happening, don't assess the risks correctly," Podolyak said.

"There is a number of our workers there, who need some kind of protection,

people from the international community standing by their side and telling

(Russian troops): 'Don't touch these people, let them work.'"

On Monday, the IAEA said Ukrainian authorities reported that

the plant's last transmission

line linking it to the nation's power grid was disconnected to allow

workers to put out a fire caused by shelling.

Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko told Ukrainian

television: "Any repairs are impossible at this point — there are ongoing

hostilities around the plant."

In the meantime, the plant's only remaining operational

reactor will "generate the power the plant needs for its safety and other functions,"

the IAEA said.

Mycle Schneider, an independent analyst in Canada on nuclear

energy, said that means the plant was probably functioning in "island

mode," or producing electricity for its own operations.

"Island mode is a very shaky, unstable and unreliable

way to provide continuous power supply to a nuclear plant," Schneider

said. He said that "many if not most islanding attempts fail."

Unpredictable fighting

The Zaporizhzhia plant has diesel emergency backup

generators to produce power to run the place if the outside source is

disrupted. But Schneider said the plant's operators may have decided to go into

island mode first.

If the plant turns to the diesel generators as a last resort

and they fail, the reactor and the spent fuel could rapidly overheat, he said.

Experts say the reactors at Zaporizhzhia are designed to

withstand natural disasters and even plane crashes, but the unpredictable

fighting has repeatedly

threatened the cooling systems. Ukraine in 1986 was the site of the world's

worst nuclear accident, the explosion at Chernobyl.

Ukrainian intelligence reported that residents of Enerhodar

were fleeing the city out of fear. Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister Iryna

Vereshchuk said Russia should organize safe corridors for women and children

living nearby.

"People en masse are reaching out to us for help. They

are trying to leave the dangerous territory, but there are no corridors,"

Vereshchuk told Ukrainian TV.

Meanwhile, gunfire

and explosions were heard Tuesday afternoon in the Russian-occupied city of

Berdyansk in southastern Ukraine, with Russia's state-run media reporting that

the car of the Kremlin-installed "city commandant" had been blown up.

The RIA Novosti news agency said that the official, Artem Bardin, was in

serious condition and that a shootout followed the assassination attempt.

The agency quoted Russian-backed local officials as saying

they had launched a manhunt for the "Ukrainian saboteurs"

responsible.

(Text and

images by AP)

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UN agency calls for safety zone around Ukraine nuclear plant

IAEA has demanded a complete stop to shelling around the Europe's largest nuclear power plant amid fears of a catastrophe as fighting continues in the vicinity of Zaporizhzhia

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