The canal had been cut between Paris and Moscow for almost three months. This Friday, August 19, Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine discussed the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Both the Kremlin and the Elysée confirmed that the two presidents had come to an agreement to send a mission of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the spot as soon as possible (IAEA) and the United Nations.
Vladimir Poutine thus accepted that this mission towards the nuclear power station under Russian control in the south of Ukraine, passes by Ukraine and not Russia, announced the Elysee after a telephone conversation of Emmanuel Macron with the Russian President. President Putin indicated, during this interview, that they agreed to “review the requirement“that it goes through Russia, indicated the French presidency. The fact remains that the operation is placed at high risk.
First of all, obviously, the security of this inspection mission must be guaranteed. It will therefore be necessary to have a ceasefire in the area. However, this Friday, August 19 again, the Ukrainian city of Nikopol was bombarded by Russian artillerymen who very probably installed their batteries within the Zaporijjia power plant.
It will also be necessary to implement special physical means: to reach Zaporijjia via the territory held by the Ukrainian army supposes crossing the Dnieper river which, in this region, is between five and ten kilometers wide.
Once there, the experts will then have to assess the damage caused by the fighting. On August 5, a bombardment on the power plant (for which the Ukrainians and Russians reject responsibility) led to a power cut disconnecting one of the reactors in service from the network and triggering its emergency power supply allowing the cooling of the circuit . It was such a prolonged break in the supply to the cooling circuits of two reactors that led to the Fukushima disaster in 2011.
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Once this assessment has been made by the IAEA experts, they are also supposed to be able to make some recommendations to the de facto managers of the plant. Currently, it is Rosatom engineers at the Russian Nuclear Agency to continue electricity production under satisfactory safety conditions.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on Russia not to cut off the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which it controls, from the Ukrainian network, as kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of dangerous bombardments from the site. The Zaporijjia power station, the largest in Europe, supplies almost a fifth of the energy consumed in Ukraine.