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Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union

Submitted on 2022-08-30 13:06:06

Russian State Duma Council Statement on the Threats Arising from the Shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant by the Ukrainian Military


The Council of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation strongly condemns the continued shelling of Zaporozhye NPP (ZNPP), Europe's largest nuclear power plant, carried out by Ukrainian military units over the past weeks.

Missile and artillery strikes are targeting critical infrastructure of the ZNPP, while breach of its nuclear security and physical safety is fraught with a major catastrophe in the heart of the European continent. Reckless actions of Kiev ordering the shelling of ZNPP could have genuinely appalling consequences.

In the territory of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian saboteurs blow up power lines connected to the Kursk nuclear power plant.

Kiev and its NATO patrons have clearly learnt no lesson from a series of high-profile accidents at nuclear power plants. Russophobic ideology has prevailed over the principles of nuclear safety and security.

To date, ensuring necessary protection of the main ZNPP facilities and the nearby town of Energodar has only been possible thanks to the dedication of Russian servicemen performing their duty as part of the special military operation in Ukraine.

Attacks against ZNPP, terrorist acts in their essence, constitute violations of international humanitarian law holding the states and politicians involved responsible for issuing criminal orders and carrying them out.

Russia has been repeatedly raising the issue at the UN Security Council, pointing out that Ukrainian strikes against ZNPP are inadmissible. Russia has provided irrefutable evidence of crimes perpetrated by the Kiev regime and has called on countries having influence on Kiev to force the Ukrainian side to stop the shelling immediately.

Western countries are becoming collaborators and accomplices in the crimes by supplying Ukraine with ever more heavy weaponry. By condoning the barbaric attacks against ZNPP, Kiev's sponsors are putting their own nations at risk, which is irresponsible and unacceptable.

The State Duma Council, which includes, inter alia, heads of factions of all political parties represented in the State Duma, calls on the UN and the IAEA, as well as national parliaments, inter-parliamentary organisations and bodies:

  • to provide a principled assessment of Kiev’s criminal actions;
  • to demand that the Ukrainian authorities immediately stop shelling ZNPP and other facilities, the destruction of which presents a risk of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination, as well as man-made disaster.

The State Duma Council demands an end to arms supplies to Ukraine, as the Kiev regime, acting against its own people, uses these weapons to kill and cripple the population, creating a risk of nuclear catastrophe.

We appeal to the citizens of Ukraine to realise the terrible consequences of the criminal and provocative policy of the Kiev regime.

The Council of the State Duma reaffirms the readiness of the Russian side to do everything necessary to organise the IAEA international mission to ZNPP, so that the Agency’s specialists could testify on site the dangers posed by constant Ukrainian attacks on the nuclear power plant, fraught with tragic consequences for all mankind.


Source URL: https://russiaeu.ru/en/node/7516