Ukraine: around the Zaporijjia power plant, the fear of a new Chernobyl is growing

" The situation is serious.

Faced with the UN Security Council meeting urgently on Thursday, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made a point of making an impression.

In recent days, several salvoes of bombardments have targeted the site of the Zaporijjia power plant, the largest in Europe.

In the hands of the Russian army since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, Moscow now intends to divert its production to supply Crimea, annexed since 2014. The international community, for its part, continues to show its concern to see events take a tragic turn.

A misplaced shot could plunge the world into a multiple and unprecedented crisis.

"A blackmail to the nuclear disaster"

While Ukrainians and Russians accuse each other of shelling the surroundings of the nuclear complex with bombs, Western leaders and experts in the conflict agree to blame Moscow for the actions, which endanger not only the Ukrainian population, but also the rest of the world.

VIDEO.

“The hour is serious”: the nuclear power plant of Zaporizhya again bombarded in Ukraine

In a country where the trauma of the Chernobyl disaster persists, even 36 years later, the nuclear risk is far from being taken lightly.

What Volodymyr Zelensky did not hesitate to recall.

"Russia is now a terrorist state and is taking the nuclear power plant hostage, blackmailing the nuclear disaster", denounced this Thursday the Ukrainian president, warning that Moscow can cause "the greatest radioactive emergency in history", the consequences of which could "be even worse than those of Chernobyl".

Valuable spoils of war for Moscow

To avoid a nuclear accident, the UN, the White House, or even the Quai d'Orsay are calling in unison for the withdrawal of the Russian army from the Zaporijjia power plant, in favor of the IAEA experts to restore the greatest security there.

But given the significant strategic and energy stakes represented by this complex, Moscow does not seem so quick to abandon this precious spoils of war.

Since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army has used this plant as a military base and living shield because of the nuclear danger it presents.

A structure of choice to supply the front and continue the advance.

On the other hand, the Kremlin intends to divert the production of electricity towards the Ukrainian territories which it has annexed, and this with a double objective: to supply these regions to continue their annexation while draining energetically and financially the rest of Ukraine. , of which Zaporizhia usually supplies one-fifth of the total electricity production.

By being at the helm of this huge power plant, the Russians thus find themselves in a position of strength on various fronts and, it seems, unassailable, except to risk a new nuclear catastrophe.