Drones attack Zaporizhzhya NPP raising safety concerns

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was on Sunday targeted by drone strikes in a serious escalation of nuclear safety and security dangers facing the facility, Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a statement.

This is the first time since November 2022 that Europe's biggest nuclear power plant has been attacked directly in military action. The attack also violates the five basic principles for protecting the facility set by Grossi at the United Nations Security Council in May 2023.

Three locations at the site were impacted, but at this point there are no indications of damage to critical nuclear safety or security systems, the statement says.

Grossi stated that attacking a nuclear power plant cannot benefit anyone or provide any military or political advantages and called on military decision makers to abstain from any action violating the basic principles that protect nuclear facilities.

ZNPP is under Russian control and there are IAEA experts stationed at the site.

Russia's Rosatom accused the Ukrainian military forces of carrying out the attacks, while Andrii Yusov, a representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, said Ukraine has not been involved.

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