http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/69183
August 19 press release on President Putin’s conversation with President Macron
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Putin wants IAEA mission to visit the power plant “as soon as possible”
From Global Research
By Connor Freeman
August 19, 2022
With rising tensions and continued shelling at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) and nearby areas, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have discussed the need to send UN monitors to assess the besieged facility. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of planning provocations and false flags at the site, amid dire warnings of a possible nuclear catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear plant.
After a call between Putin and Macron on Friday, their first in three months, the Kremlin issued a statement reiterating the Russian offer to provide security for an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission. The statement said that Moscow “confirmed its readiness to provide the [IAEA] inspectors with the necessary assistance.”
Putin also emphasized that Ukraine’s shelling at the plant could cause a “large-scale catastrophe,” telling Macon that inspectors should visit the ZNPP “as soon as possible.” The French readout of the call said the two leaders “will speak about this subject again in the next few days following discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission.”
While Ukraine asserts that Russian forces are attacking the ZNPP, Moscow has controlled the plant and surrounding areas since March, giving it little reason to risk a major nuclear incident that would imperil ethnic Russians under its protection in the Zaporizhzhia oblast.
Though Russia controls the plant, it is still run by Ukrainian operators. Moreover, Russia has voiced ever-greater concern over the situation, calling for independent inspectors to review evidence they say will prove who is responsible for attacks at the site. For weeks, the area has seen frequent shelling, and a Russian-backed official in the oblast recently accused Kiev of attacking the power plant repeatedly with US-provided M777 howitzers. On Friday, Moscow submitted a letter to the UN Security Council warning of Kiev’s planned “provocations” at the ZNPP.
Ukraine’s Energoatom state nuclear company claims Moscow plans to switch off the functioning power blocks at the plant, cut it off from Ukraine’s power grid and reconnect it to the Russian grid in an attempt to deprive the country of a major power source. Petro Kotin, the head of Energoatom, told Reuters that decoupling and reconnecting the plant is a “technically difficult process,” and noted the Russian military is looking for diesel to keep the nuclear fuel cooling systems working once the external power supply is cut. While there are back-up diesel generators at the site, it remains unclear if the supplies are sufficient. Igor Kirillov, a Russian Defense Ministry official, said the ZNPP’s back-up support systems had been damaged as a result of attacks and might have to be shut down.
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