Kyiv/Vienna/Washington/Moscow: The situation in Chornobyl remains dangerous and there is no energy supply, the Adviser to the Head of the Office of Ukraine’s President Mykhailo Podoliak, claimed today.
Ukraine also informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about the disconnection of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) from the electricity grid. It said the NPP had lost its supply of external power, two weeks after Russian forces took control of the site of the 1986 accident.
The IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi expressed “deep concern” as the “secure off-site power supply from the grid for all nuclear sites” was one of seven indispensable pillars of nuclear safety and security that he outlined at a meeting of the IAEA’s Board of Governors on March 2, 2022, convened to address the safety, security and safeguards implications of the situation in Ukraine.
In the case of the Chornobyl NPP, however, he said its disconnection from the grid would not have a critical impact on essential safety functions at the site, where various radioactive waste management facilities are located.
Also read: Chornobyl waiting for another disaster?
“Specifically, regarding the site’s spent fuel storage facility, the volume of cooling water in the pool is sufficient to maintain effective heat removal from the spent fuel without a supply of electricity. The site also has reserve emergency power supplies with diesel generators and batteries,” he said.
Nevertheless, he said that the lack of power is likely to lead to a further deterioration of operational radiation safety at the site and create additional stress for around 210 technical experts and guards who have not been able to rotate for the past two weeks, in effect living there around the clock.
“From day-to-day, we are seeing a worsening situation at the Chornobyl NPP, especially for radiation safety, and for the staff managing the facility under extremely difficult and challenging circumstances,” he said. “I repeat my urgent appeal to the forces in effective control of the plant to respect internal radiation protection procedures, to facilitate the safe rotation of staff and to take other important steps to ensure safety.”
In another development, he said the IAEA in recent days had lost remote data transmission from its safeguards systems installed to monitor nuclear material at the Chornobyl NPP and another Ukrainian nuclear power plant now controlled by Russian forces, the Zaporizhzhya NPP. He said he was concerned about the sudden interruption of such data flows to the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters from the two sites, where large amounts of nuclear material are present in the form of spent or fresh nuclear fuel and other types of nuclear material.
The reason for the disruption in the transmission of safeguards data was not immediately clear. The IAEA continues to receive such data from other nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including the three other nuclear power plants.
Meanwhile, Ukraine today claimed Russian forces continued to bomb Mariupol city, specifically targetting areas that are part of the evacuation routes for civilians.
Mariupol is completely blocked for evacuation and humanitarian aid, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. The humanitarian cargo, which left for the city today, has returned to Zaporizhzhia. “This is the 4th day when we cannot bring water, necessary medical supplies, and products,” the Deputy Prime Minister said.
The Russian troops also killed 5 civilians, including a little girl, in the Donetsk region, the National Police of Ukraine claimed. At least 22 persons were injured. “The situation in the city is a dire humanitarian disaster. After bombing a maternity hospital yesterday, Russian forces are now bombing the city centre,” Ukraine claimed.
In the meantime, Russia today accused the European Union and NATO states, of using their “absolute majority” in the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to destroy the Council of Europe and the common humanitarian and legal space in Europe.
“The events are approaching a point of no return,” Russian Foreign Ministry stated in Moscow today. It made it clear that Russia will not accept the “subversive actions” being taken by the collective West to replace international law, which the United States and its satellites are trampling underfoot, with a “rules-based order.”
As the “special military operation” by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continues in Ukraine for the 15th day, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier claimed the “lion’s share of responsibility for the crisis lies with the NATO member countries, which encouraged and supported Kyiv’s Russophobic policy and not only recognised but orchestrated the anti-constitutional coup in 2014”. The official statements by Ukrainian politicians about seeking nuclear weapons were the last straw, she said.
Meanwhile, Washington accused the Kremlin as well as Beijing of “intentionally spreading outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine”. The US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price charged Russia with “inventing false pretexts in an attempt to justify its own horrific actions in Ukraine”.
While claiming that the United States does not own or operate any chemical or biological laboratories in Ukraine and that it is in full compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention, Price said the US does not develop or possess such weapons anywhere. “It is Russia that has active chemical and biological weapons programs and is in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention,” he said.
Earlier on March 8, 2022, the US had declined to help facilitate the transfer of jets manned by Americans departing a NATO base on grounds that to fly into airspace contested with Russia “raises serious concerns for the United States and NATO”. The White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, told journalists yesterday (local time) that conversations were happening between the US and NATO counterparts at the military level on how to get planes into Ukraine in a way that is not escalatory, and what are the logistics and operational details of that, she said.
– global bihari bureau
