Russian Federation is trying to hold everyone hostage by shelling Zaporizhzhia NPP, - Reznikov
The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP by the Russians is a provocation and a play on the "nuclear nerves" of the world society as a whole.
This was stated by the head of the Ministry of Defense Oleksii Reznikov in an interview with "Voice of America", Censor.NET informs.
"It makes no sense for us to do this, because today we understand the entire level of nuclear danger to humanity. We experienced the Chornobyl tragedy in 1986. Only Ukrainians know what the Chornobyl tragedy is. How many people died later from this radiation. That's why we We are ringing all the bells and asking not only the IAEA, but the entire international community to intervene, to influence so that this does not become another cause of a nuclear disaster in Europe," the Minister of Defense explained.
According to Reznikov, Western partners trust Ukraine's assurances not to endanger the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
"But for me, there is still no reason to believe that there is any mistrust towards us. At least, not a single request, not a single conversation, and I communicate with the ministers of defense of all countries that are friendly to us, there are about 50 of them as of today ... Not a single question on this topic that they would like to clarify was raised," the minister explained.
According to Reznikov, by shelling the territory of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the Russians are trying to "hold you and all of us hostage, by using nuclear weapons in the form of "peaceful" nuclear weapons."
"They will try technically, we know this for sure, to switch the electricity produced by this station to supply it to Crimea, and to completely disconnect from this electricity the free territories of Ukraine, which are under the control of the government. These are the tasks they solve by blocking this station," the minister added.
Recently, the Russian military has been consistently shelling the territory of the station. "Energoatom" warns that the shelling is being carried out to destroy the infrastructure, disconnect it from the energy system of Ukraine and cut off electricity in the south of our country. Talks about reconnecting the ZNPP to the RF power grid were conducted by the occupiers from the beginning.
On August 8, the occupiers announced that they were demining the Zaporizhzhia NPP and that they were ready to blow it up. Ukraine sent letters to the UN and the IAEA with the demand to send a security mission to the ZNPP.
On August 11, a meeting of the UN Security Council regarding the situation at the Zaporizhia NPP was held in New York. The meeting was called at the request of Russia due to shelling of the ZNPP allegedly by the Ukrainian military.
The representative of Ukraine called for demilitarization of the station for the visit of the IAEA mission, but the permanent representative of the Russian Federation did not support this proposal.
On August 15, it became known that the occupiers damaged the equipment of the ZNPP: there is a high risk of spraying radioactive substances and fire.
