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Russia accused Ukraine of using nuclear power plants as sites for ammunition storage. The Russian mass media published the corresponding statement of Serhii Naryshkin of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation on Monday, January 23. In particular, he stated that Ukraine imports by trains and stores heavy weapons provided to us by partners at the industrial site of the Rivne NPP.
However, in early September 2022, it was the Russian military that brought military equipment with ammunition into the engine rooms of power units 1 and 2 Zaporizhzhia NPP, were placed under overpasses and next to the reactor units of the BMP, the military set up barracks on the industrial site, and the emergency crisis center is used as a bomb shelter, blocking access to it for the personnel of the nuclear power plant. The facts of the placement of military heavy equipment were recorded in the IAEA report by the Director General Rafael Grossi, who saw it all with his own eyes. He presented the report at a meeting of the UN Security Council in September.
But this is not the first Russian lie of this kind. Let me remind you that as early as March 2022, the foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation claimed that “work on the creation of a nuclear explosive device, which could be used in the future in the design of nuclear warheads, was carried out in several scientific directions, the key role was assigned to scientists of the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology Institute” (NSC KhFTI), and they were helped by colleagues from scientific institutes throughout Ukraine, including the Institute of Nuclear Power Plant Safety Problems (NPP NPP), whose scientists conducted work in the area of the Chornobyl NPP as a making a “dirty” bombas well as from the release of plutonium, since the high radiation background common to the Chernobyl zone hid the conduct of such work.”
In October 2022, when the fantasy about combat insects and geese did not pass, a fake about a “dirty bomb” appeared again, only other locations were named as the places of its “production” – the Institute of Nuclear Research of the National Academy of Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences and the East GZK. NASU responded to the fakes with statements on the official website, and Ukraine invited inspectors from IAEA guarantees to check these enterprises.
No signs of undeclared nuclear activity were detected
By the way, the institutions of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, as well as the Eastern Research Institute of Nuclear Research, which deal with nuclear topics, are under guarantees of the non-proliferation of nuclear material and nuclear technologies by the IAEA. Only in the last two years, including the period of martial law, the IAEA conducted a number of technical inspections (including unannounced and with additional access) in the specified institutions to check the inventory quantities of nuclear material and activities related to its use, as well as to fulfill other provisions and requirements of the Agreement on guarantees between Ukraine and the IAEA and the Additional Protocol to this Agreement.
According to the results of these inspections, no signs of undeclared nuclear activity were found. As well as developments that could give rise to assumptions about the implementation of work on the creation of a “dirty bomb”…
So Russia continues to create fakes according to the KGB methodology and according to Putin’s favorite saying: “He who is called, is called.” That is, Russian propagandists accuse Ukraine of what they are doing themselves. They had no imagination and creativity.
At the same time, it is worth noting that the Russian lie about the improper use of nuclear power plants by Ukraine appeared already after the widely publicized facts about the arrival of Raphael Grossi and IAEA experts on a permanent basis at RANPP, PANPP and ChNPP (and on Monday IAEA experts also came to KhaNPP )…
False information from the Russians is designed for a numb internal audience
It is clear that the false information from the Russians is designed for a numb domestic audience. But! Members of the UN Security Council are forced to listen to combat insects, pigeons, geese and other fantastic versions of “dirty bombs” and that it is Ukraine that is shelling the ZNPP, as Russia constantly convenes its meetings to meet its demands. And I really hope that Ukrainian diplomats are already actively working on the issue of excluding Russia from the UN Security Council and the IAEA’s governing bodies.
Olga Kosharna, expert on nuclear energy and nuclear safety, member of the “Ukrainian Nuclear Society”