Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky raised the specter of the Chernobyl disaster on Monday and called for new sanctions against Russia, following new attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
“The world must not forget Chernobyl and the fact that Zaporizhzhia is the largest power plant in Europe.. The Chernobyl Disaster [em 1986] it was a reactor explosion and the Zaporizhia plant has six reactors,” Zelensky warned in his daily speech. The Ukrainian leader recalled the accident at reactor number 4 of the Chernobyl power plant, which exploded on April 26, 1986, causing the largest civil nuclear accident and releasing a radioactive cloud that spread across Europe.
The Zaporizhia factory site in southern Ukraine has been under Russian control since March 4. Already was bombed twice at the end of last week, even near a reactor. On Friday, Ukrainian authorities accused Russian forces of carrying out three attacks near a reactor at the nuclear power plant, which is in a region controlled by Russia since the beginning of the invasion. The Russian military, for its part, says Ukrainian forces are at the origin of the attacks, which sparked a fire at the plant.
New sanctions are needed against the terrorist state and the entire Russian nuclear industry, which is creating the threat of a nuclear catastrophe,” Zelensky said.
In his daily speech, Zelensky also stressed the importance of a total Russian defeat. “Only the manifest defeat of the aggressor, the loss of everything he captured and his international responsibility at the legal level are guarantees against war,” he stressed. He added that Ukraine must be given back everything that Russian forces “temporarily seized.”
Source: Observadora
