UN demands Russia immediately return Europe’s biggest nuclear plant to Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS — The UN General Assembly on Thursday adopted a resolution calling on Russia to urgently withdraw its troops and personnel from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and immediately return the facility to Ukraine.
The resolution also reiterates the assembly’s demands that Russia immediately “cease its aggression against Ukraine” and withdraw all troops, and reaffirms the 193-member world body’s commitment to Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity.”
The resolution was approved by a vote of 99-9, with 60 countries abstaining and 25 countries not voting.
Russia was joined by Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Syria, Burundi and North Korea in opposing the resolution. China, India, South Africa and many Middle Eastern countries were among those that abstained.
The resolution expresses “deep concern about the precarious nuclear safety and security situation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.” It says that returning the plant to Ukraine’s full control will ensure its safety and security and enable the International Atomic Energy Agency to “implement safe, efficient and effective safeguards.”
Fears of a nuclear disaster have been high since Russian troops occupied the factory shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Zaporizhia, which has six nuclear reactors, is located in Russian controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine, close to the front lines, and is constantly under crossfire.
The IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern about cuts to Zaporizhia’s electricity, which is crucial to the plant’s operation, and the plants’ supply problems. Without placing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the UN Security Council on April 15 that his agency had confirmed three attacks on Zaporizhia since April 7th.
Both Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of attacking the plant, and the accusations continued on Thursday.
Ukraine’s Ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, introduced the resolution, telling the General Assembly that Russia “continues to violate the main principles of technological and physical nuclear safety” and continues to attack the nuclear power plant.
Ukraine and neighboring countries suffered “the disastrous consequences” of the nuclear explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986, he said, but the consequences of a possible incident in Zaporizhia “deliberately turned into a key part of Russia’s military strategy would be even more catastrophic.”
Kyslytsya warned that “if we just stand there with our arms folded, that happiness will not last forever and an incident will be inevitable.”
“Nuclear safety and protection depend on our ability to take a strong and common position on the inadmissibility of the continued occupation and militarization of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” the Ukrainian ambassador said.
Russian Deputy Ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyansky accused Ukraine and its Western supporters of trying to push through the resolution with the real aim of getting the General Assembly’s “blessing” for the outcome of last month’s vote. Ukraine Peace Conference in Switzerland and ‘the secret introduction of political elements’.
In the conference communiqué, nearly 80 countries called for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” to be used as a basis for a peace deal to end the war. It also said Zaporizhia and other nuclear power plants should remain under Ukrainian control, in line with IAEA principles.
Polyansky accused the communiqué’s proponents of trying to “promote the false Western narrative about the source of the threats to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants.” He claimed that the only threat to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants today comes from Kiev’s “regular, reckless attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” its infrastructure, and the nearby city where the plant’s workers and their families live.