'Do not touch sensitive American technology at Ukrainian nuclear plant': US warns Russia
The head of the UN’s atomic energy watchdog in March warned that it was easy to see evidence of intensified fighting in the area that poses a threat to the nuclear power plant’s safety
A general view of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. AFP
New Delhi: The US has sensitive nuclear technology at a nuclear power plant inside Ukraine and is warning Russia not to touch it.
According to a letter, the US Department of Energy sent to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom, “The director of the Energy Department’s Office of Nonproliferation Policy, Andrea Ferkile, tells Rosatom’s director general that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar “contains US-origin nuclear technical data that is export-controlled by the United States Government.”
Meanwhile, the head of the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog crossed the front line in the war in Ukraine to visit Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in March and warned that it was easy to see evidence of intensified fighting in the area that poses a threat to the facility’s safety.
The increasing combat makes it urgent to find a way to prevent a potentially catastrophic nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“It is obvious that this area is facing perhaps a more dangerous phase,” he said of the facility, which is in a partially Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. “We have to step up our efforts to get to some agreement of the protection of the plant.”
Grossi has struggled to agree with Russian and Ukrainian authorities on a deal to secure the plant, which has been hit several times during the Ukraine war. The site has also suffered several losses of external power needed to cool its six shut-down reactors, forcing it to rely on emergency back-up generators.
With inputs from agencies
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