Russia’s takeover and bombing of the main nuclear power plant in Ukraine and all of Europe, which has caused an international outcry, could be of both strategic and symbolic importance for the Kremlin, many argue experts contacted by The duty Friday.
“We survived a night that could have ended history. The History of Ukraine. The History of Europe,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday after a night marked by an attack in the Zaporizhia power plant in southern Ukraine. Russian military strikes then caused a fire which affected a laboratory and a training building of the plant, whose nuclear reactors were however spared, indicated the Ukrainian authorities.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed on Friday the information that no “essential” equipment was damaged in this plant. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has indicated that it is “monitoring carefully” this situation, while also assuring that there is no “immediate radiological threat” for the regions neighboring this plant or “for Canadians “.
However, the takeover of this plant has marked the spirits, raising strong condemnations, in particular on the part of Washington and the European Union. Concerns were also high on Friday, the ninth day of the war in Ukraine. “This is the first time that a military conflict has taken place in a country with a large nuclear program”, notably raised the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi.
This military intervention thus has great symbolic value, since it brings back the ghost of the worst nuclear disaster in history, which occurred in 1986 in Chernobyl, Ukraine. The repercussions of this were then felt “everywhere in Europe”, reminds the Homework Associate Vice-Rector for Research at the Royal Military College of Canada and specialist in Russia, Pierre Jolicoeur.
“It strikes the imagination that today, nuclear sites are the target of a conflict”, adds the expert, who fears that Russia will try to take possession of other nuclear power plants from Ukraine in the coming years. days.
“It made everyone aware of the real risks of this war slipping and escalating,” also analyzes the founder of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Strategic and Diplomatic Studies at UQAM, Charles-Philippe David.
strategic importance
The takeover of this nuclear power plant, which produces enough electricity to supply around four million homes, could also play a strategic role for Russia, which could decide to cut off the energy supply to certain sectors, analyzes Mr. David. The expert therefore sees in this military gain “a significant turning point” in this conflict.
However, a possible power cut “to the installations necessary to maintain life”, such as hospitals and water treatment plants, “we call that war crimes”, evokes the specialist in the sociology of the military and professor at the Canadian Forces College, Éric Ouellet. “The international community should follow this closely,” he said.
A resolution in favor of an international commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Ukraine was voted by an overwhelming majority on Friday morning at the UN Human Rights Council.
The American organization Human Rights Watch also accused the Russian army of having used cluster munitions in the city of Kharkiv “in at least three residential areas” on 28 February, which could constitute a war crime.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, claimed that Russian forces were not bombing Kiev and major Ukrainian cities, calling reports of the destruction carried out by Moscow a “gross propaganda fabrication”.
A grim record
On Friday, fighting continued in Chernihiv, north of Kiev, where Ukraine accused Moscow of bombing a residential area and schools on Thursday, killing 47 people. A UN report published on Friday thus reports the death of more than 330 civilians since the start of the war in Ukraine, while 675 others have been injured, overloading the health system.
In response to the Russian invasion, economic sanctions continued to rain down on Russia. However, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s request to bring Ukraine into NATO remained a dead letter on Friday. “Ukraine will never be part of NATO,” says Éric Ouellet, who sees this as “an open secret”.
As for the alliance’s decision to refuse President Zelensky’s request to set up a no-fly zone over Ukraine, it is explained by the serious consequences that such a measure could have, according to the three experts consulted by The duty. “If it happened, it would help Ukraine. But then we would have NATO planes attacking Russian planes, and there, it would be World War III,” Mr. Ouellet drops.
New rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine are expected to take place this weekend in an attempt to find a way out of the conflict, which has so far claimed more than 1.2 million refugees, according to the latest count of ONU.
With Agence France-Presse