Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the international community this Friday (26) to put pressure on Russia to return the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, warning against a new catastrophe like that of Chernobyl, almost four decades ago. .

“The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was occupied for 35 days. Russian soldiers looted the laboratories, captured the guards and mistreated the personnel, using them to launch new hostilities,”  said Zelensky in a speech given on the 38th anniversary of the nuclear catastrophe, on April 26, 1986.

`Chernobyl, threats may still emerge`.

“Radiation knows no borders and makes no distinction between national flags. The Chernobyl catastrophe showed the world how quickly deadly threats can emerge ,” said Zelensky, who acknowledged the work of “tens of thousands of people” to prevent these  “terrible consequences.”

The Ukrainian president sought to draw a parallel between this episode and the current situation in the Zaporizhia plant, “held hostage”, he stressed, by Russian “terrorists”.

“The whole world has a duty to pressure Russia to release the plant and return it to full control in Ukraine.”  He also argued that only in this way will it be possible  to “guarantee that the world does not suffer new radiological catastrophes, exactly the threat that exists every day with the presence of Russian invaders at the Zaporizhia nuclear plant” .

Understand

Since March 4, 2022, less than two weeks after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has been under Russian control.

A mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an agency that is part of the United Nations system, has been permanently on site since September 4, 2022. However, this has not prevented the installations from being the scene of attacks that they accuse each other of. Russians and Ukrainians.

The worst nuclear accident in history occurred on April 26, 1986 in Ukraine, which at the time was one of the 15 Soviet republics, when a reactor at the Chernobyl plant, located about 100 kilometers from Kiev, exploded, contaminating about three quarters Europe, especially Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

It is estimated that around 350,000 people were displaced and that the health of thousands of people was affected, directly or indirectly, by the effects of the accident.

Source: diariodopoder