Putin orders Russia to take over Ukraine nuclear plant
Russia's president Vladimir Putin ordered his government to take over Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, as the UN nuclear watchdog warned that power supply to the site was extremely fragile, but the boss of Ukraine's state energy agency said he was taking over the plant, which has become a focus of international concern after shelling in the area for which Moscow and Kyiv blame each other.
Russia captured Zaporizhzhia's nuclear power plant ZNPP in March after invading Ukraine, but Ukrainian staff continued to operate it.
The plant is located in the southern Ukrainian region called Zaporizhzhia, one of four regions that President Vladimir Putin formally incorporated into Russia on Wednesday in a move condemned by Kyiv as an illegal land grab.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is now on the territory of the Russian Federation and should therefore be operated under the supervision of our relevant agencies, according to the Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin.
Putin signed a decree that designated the ZNPP federal property Russia's nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom said it would conduct an assessment of how to repair damage to the plant's infrastructure and transfer all existing Ukrainian employees to a new Russian-owned organisation.
The new operating organisation is designed to ensure the safe operation of the nuclear power plant and the professional activities of existing plant personnel, it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine's state nuclear energy company said he was taking charge of the ZNPP and urged workers not to sign any documents with its Russian occupiers.
Petro Kotin said in a video address posted on the Telegram messaging app that all decisions regarding the station's operation will be made directly at the central office of Energoatom.
Kotin said that we will continue to work within Ukrainian law, within the Ukrainian energy system, within Energoatom.
His comments followed the brief detention of the ZNPP's Ukrainian director Ihor Murashev by Russian forces last weekend. The International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, later said that Murashev had been released, but would not return to his old job.
The U.N. agency said that the IAEA chief Rafael Grossi is currently in Ukraine for further consultations on an agreement on a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP.
On Wednesday, Grossi reiterated his concerns about the power supply to the plant.
The situation with regard to external power continues to be extremely precarious. We do have external power at the moment, but it is fragile. He told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London via a telephone link that there is one line feeding the plant.
Grossi is due to visit Moscow this week, and Russia's state-owned TASS news agency said he might visit the ZNPP after he traveled there last month with a team to inspect damage caused by shelling in the vicinity.
Before Russia's invasion, the plant produced about one-fifth of Ukraine's electricity and nearly half of the energy generated by the country's nuclear power facilities.
Russia annexed Zaporizhzhia and three other regions after holding what it called referendums denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive. Moscow does not control all of the four regions.