March 28, 2022
A general view shows the New Safe Confinement
(NSC) structure over the old sarcophagus covering the damaged fourth reactor at
the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine November 22, 2018.
REUTERS/Gleb Garanich/File Photo
March 27 (Reuters) - A
senior Ukrainian official accused Russia on Sunday of "irresponsible"
acts around the occupied Chernobyl power station that could send radiation
across much of Europe, and urged the United Nations to dispatch a mission to
assess the risks.
Deputy Prime Minister
Iryna Vereshchuk said Russian forces were "militarising" the
exclusion zone around the station, site of the world's worst civil nuclear
accident in 1986.
Russian forces, she
said, were transporting large amounts of old and badly maintained weapons,
creating a risk of damaging the containment vessel constructed around the
station's wrecked fourth reactor.
And Russian forces
were preventing firefighters from bringing under control large numbers of fires
in the zone.
"In the context
of nuclear safety, the irresponsible and unprofessional actions of Russian
servicemen present a very serious threat not only to Ukraine but to hundreds of
millions of Europeans," Vereshchuk said on her Telegram account.
"We therefore
demand that the U.N. Security Council adopt immediate measures to demilitarise
the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl station as well as dispatching a
special mission to eliminate the risks of any repeat of the Chernobyl accident
resulting from the actions of Russian occupying forces," she said.
Vereshchuk said damage
to the containment vessel, built with European financing, would
"inevitably lead to the release in the atmosphere of a considerable amount
of radioactive dust and contamination not only in Ukraine but also in other
European countries".
Russia, she said, was
"ignoring these risks" by continuing to transport weapons in areas
near the station.
Reuters could not
immediately verify Vereshchuk's claims on the ground. Russia has previously
denied that its forces have put nuclear facilities inside Ukraine at risk.
The fire and explosion
in 1986 in Chernobyl's fourth reactor sent radiation wafting as far away as
Britain and Spain. Thousands of deaths have been linked to the aftermath of the
accident and the radiation it released.
All its reactors have
now been taken out of service.
Russian forces
occupied the Chernobyl station in the first days of the invasion last month and
for a time prevented staff maintaining facilities there from leaving or being
spelled off by other workers.
The mayor of
Slavutych, the town created and built in the aftermath of the 1986 accident,
said on Saturday that Russian forces had taken over the town. Three people were
killed in clashes. read more
The International
Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement that it was closely monitoring the
situation and expressed concern about the ability of staff to rotate in and out
of the station.
Writing by Ron
Popeski; Editing by Daniel Wallis
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