the Zaporijjia power plant at the heart of a propaganda war

Zaporizhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, is in Ukraine, and it is currently in Russian hands. For several weeks, fighting has regularly taken place near the site. Both sides accuse each other of repeated shootings at the installations. A propaganda war is underway.

Within the safety perimeter are six reactors and fuel and waste storage sites. If it is certain that the plant was hit, it remains difficult to say on which installations the shots were fired. “The containment enclosures […]which are concrete domes, are there to protect the reactor core […] against, for example, the fall of certain planes”, specifies Karine Herviou, deputy director in charge of the IRSN’s security division, who explains however that they were not designed to withstand bombardments. Live on the spot, the journalist Maryse Burgot tells for her part that the town hall and the pharmacists distribute a pill which “protects the thyroid in the event of radioactive emission”.