Two days after Russian troops seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Ukraine’s Nuclear Safety Regulatory Commission announced yesterday that this Sunday was the second attack they describe in Moscow as “nuclear terrorism.” The blast, which struck a neutron-based research facility at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, caused damage to facilities already suspended from the start of the invasion, including the cooling systems of the linear accelerator. Isotope Laboratory. This is the regulator’s third statement after an appeal to the United Nations, the European Commission and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to do everything possible to strengthen the appeal made by the Ukrainian Minister of Energy. To prevent the “global nuclear catastrophe”.
It called for the creation of a specialized UN mission to ensure the security of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, which could “establish the facts and document all the crimes of the Russian military for future testing.”
On the phone this weekend, Dmytro Gumenyuk, head of the defense analysis department of the SSTC NRS, the Ukrainian state center for nuclear and radiation protection, and one of the members of the now-emerging crisis cabinet, is using it. Used by the regulator to describe what happened in Zaporizhia on Friday: “These are nuclear terrorists”.
In the case of the plant in the largest Enerhodor city in the country and in Europe, as happened in Khaki this Sunday, the charge in Kiev is that the fire was set near important installations. It does not catch them, deliberately increasing the possibility of catastrophic damage. Zaporizhzhia has no signs of radioactive leakage and is concerned with cooling shutdown reactors under control, keeping only one of the rivers running for energy. “A few days ago he asked me if I could shoot a nuclear power plant. Ordinary people would never do that, but for the mentally ill it was unfortunately possible. Unfortunately my prediction came true. I do not know if they are nuclear terrorists and if they understand the danger. This is a problem for Europe and Russia, “said Dmytro Gumenyuk, chief of The Christian Science Monitor’s Washington bureau.
In the simulations carried out after the fire at the plant, the expert says that if there was an accident at the nuclear reactor near the fire that burned for several hours, a radioactive cloud would form with the atmospheric conditions of the day. Reached Russia and Kazakhstan. “Russia would have attacked its own people.”
Russian forces are approaching the Mykolayiv province, where the southern Ukrainian nuclear power plant is located. “Even if the Ukrainian army destroys a bridge that provides access to the city, based on what we saw in Enerhodor, I think it could be attacked,” says the nuclear engineer. Dmytro Gumeniuk reinforces what the West condemned on Friday for the attack: “This is the first time someone has fired on a nuclear power plant. It transcends all traditions. Attacks on nuclear power plants are dangerous to everyone.