DW – August 12, 2022
Leading Russian politicians are rejecting the G7’s demand that Moscow hand control of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian troops since March, back to Ukraine.
“No and no again,” Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, answered when asked about the possible handover, according to the Russian Interfax news agency. To ensure the safety of the nuclear power plant, he said, complete control over the facility is necessary.
Kosachev’s sentiment was echoed by the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the State Duma, Leonid Slutsky, who accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism.”
“And all the statements of support by the G7 foreign ministers are nothing but sponsorship of nuclear terrorism,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Ukraine has accused Russia of firing at Ukrainian towns from the site in the knowledge that Ukrainian forces could not risk returning fire. It says Moscow has shelled the area itself while blaming Ukraine. Russia says it is Ukraine that has shelled the plant. The security situation around the facility, which has been occupied by Russian troops since March, has deteriorated in recent days, with fresh shelling reported at the site on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the German government has expressed concern about the ongoing fighting in the area around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Berlin had “no findings of its own” that could confirm any of the conflicting accounts coming from Kyiv or Moscow, but Berlin was calling “on all sides to stop this highly dangerous shelling.”
The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, also supported call for demilitarisation of the area starting with full withdrawal of Russian forces, and urged IAEA to visit. “Zaporizhzhia facility must not be used as part of any military operation,” he wrote on Twitter.