UNITED NATIONS — The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution Thursday demanding that Russia urgently withdraw its military and personnel from the Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and immediately return the facilities to Ukraine.
The resolution also reiterates the assembly’s demands that Russia “immediately cease its aggression against Ukraine” and withdraw all troops, and once again reaffirms the 193-member world body’s commitment to “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of Ukraine.
The resolution was approved by 99 votes to 9, with 60 countries abstaining and 25 countries not voting.
Russia joined Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Syria, Burundi and North Korea in opposing the resolution. China, India, South Africa and many Middle Eastern countries were among those who abstained.
The resolution expresses “grave concern about the precarious nuclear safety situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.” It says that returning the plant to full Ukrainian control will guarantee its security and allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to “carry out safe, efficient and effective safeguards”.
Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been present since Russian troops occupied the factory shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022. Zaporizhzhia, which has six nuclear reactors, is in Territory controlled by Russia in southeastern Ukraine, close to the front lines and has continually been caught in crossfire.
The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm over cuts to electricity in Zaporizhzhia, which are crucial for the plant’s operation, and over supply problems at the plants. Without assigning blame, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the UN Security Council on April 15 that his agency had confirmed three attacks against Zaporizhzhia since April 7th.
Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly accused each other of attacking the factory, and the accusations continued on Thursday.
Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya introduced the resolution, telling the General Assembly that Russia “continues to violate the fundamental principles of technological and physical nuclear security” and continues to attack the plant.
Ukraine and neighboring countries suffered “the disastrous consequences” of the nuclear explosion at the Chernobyl plant in 1986, he said, but the repercussions of a possible incident in Zaporizhzhia “which was deliberately turned into a key component of Russia’s military strategy would be be even more catastrophic.”
Kyslytsya warned that “if we simply sit idly by, good luck will not last forever and an incident will be inevitable.”
“Nuclear safety and security depend on our ability to adopt a strong and common position on the inadmissibility of the continued occupation and militarization of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” said the Ukrainian ambassador.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, accused Ukraine and its Western supporters of trying to pass the resolution with the real aim of obtaining the General Assembly’s “blessing” for the outcome of last month’s negotiations. Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland and “insert political elements”.
In the conference communiqué, nearly 80 countries called for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity” to be the basis for any peace agreement to end the war. It also stated that Zaporizhzhia and other nuclear power plants should remain under Ukrainian control, in accordance with IAEA principles.
Polyansky accused the statement’s supporters of trying to “promote the false Western narrative about the source of threats to nuclear facilities in Ukraine.” He stated that the only threat to nuclear facilities in Ukraine today comes from Kiev’s “regular and reckless attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”, its related infrastructure and the neighboring city where the plant’s employees and their families live.
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