(Moscow) Russia has formally appropriated the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which it has occupied militarily since the beginning of March, according to a decree signed on Wednesday by its President Vladimir Putin.
Posted at 2:33 p.m.
Shortly after this announcement, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, who had planned to visit Kyiv and Moscow this week, announced his departure for the Ukrainian capital to discuss the establishment of a protection zone around the plant.
The latter, the largest in Europe, is located in the region of Zaporizhia, one of the Ukrainian territories officially annexed last week by Russia, and not far from the dividing line between the territories controlled by Kyiv and those occupied by Moscow.
“The government will have to ensure that the nuclear facilities at the power plant […] be considered federal property,” reads the Russian decree.
The Ukrainian operator Energoatom, for its part, said it considered Vladimir Putin’s decree “null and void, absurd and inappropriate”.
“The Zaporizhia power plant will continue to operate in Ukraine, in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, in the Ukrainian energy system, in Energoatom,” the company added on Telegram.
While the administrative management of the plant was transferred to Moscow on Wednesday, Energoatom was indignant at “the creation of pseudo-companies with the name of Ukrainian companies”.
This Russian decision shows “the agony of the crazy imaginary world of the aggressor country”, further castigated the Ukrainian operator.
Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of bombing the site for several months, with these strikes raising the specter of a major nuclear disaster similar to that of Chernobyl in 1986.
Last weekend, the Ukrainian director of the plant, Igor Murachov, was briefly detained by the Russians, before being released. The boss of Energoatom, Petro Kotine, has since taken over, he announced on Wednesday morning.