Renat Karchaa, an advisor to the CEO of Rosenergoatom, told TASS yesterday that ballistics specialists have handed over the evidence that Ukrainian artillery located across the Dnieper River in Marganets was responsible for the shelling of the plant on Nov. 19-20 to the IAEA experts at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. “A highly qualified expert in ballistics explained to them in detail, based on solid proof, the location of the source of strikes,” Karchaa emphasized. The IAEA specialists, after studying the sites where shells hit the power plant, sent their report to the IAEA headquarters.
“The shellings [of the ZNPP] will stop only in one case. If, under guarantees provided by major states that are the real decision-making centers regarding Ukraine (Ukraine stopped to be an actor in its own right a long time ago) a binding document is signed to oblige Ukraine to cease all artillery activities in this area,” Karchaa went on. “Only when Ukraine realizes the consequences of violations will it be possible to discuss and expect something in earnest. Everything else - the preservation of the current state of affairs - will be tantamount to a permanent threat to the ZNPP.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it “especially ridiculous” that the Ukrainian shelling came on the heels of an anti-Russia resolution in the Board of Governors of the IAEA. “By doing so the Western sponsors once again showed their duplicity and gave carte blanche to the [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky regime to continue their insane attempts to cause irreparable damage to the ZNPP. In fact, they are accomplices to the crimes being committed by Kiev, for which there is no excuse,” she stressed. “Inspired by limitless support from their Western sponsors, Ukraine’s authorities seem to have nothing to restrain them, even in the presence of IAEA representatives, whose lives they are ready to put at risk,” she added.
