Zelensky Promises to Stop Attacking Europe’s Biggest Nuclear Power Plant

They’ve always said Russians attacked their own power plant. The last big round of pushing this was before the “spring counteroffensive,” which began in June.

The Guardian was the main paper enthusiastically printing Ukrainian state media releases that Russians were bombing their own power plant.

Now they’re the only one printing the statements by the Ukraine that they will stop directly attacking the plant.

It’s a very strange dynamic at this paper.

The Guardian:

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Volodymyr Zelenskiy has promised him that Ukraine will not attack Europe’s biggest nuclear plant as part of its counteroffensive against Russia.

In an interview with the Guardian, the nuclear watchdog chief said he was most concerned about the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant becoming engulfed in fighting between the two sides, but insisted he had obtained a commitment from the Ukrainian president.

President Zelenskiy has personally assured me that they will not directly bomb or shell it,” Grossi said, although he added that Zelenskiy had told him “all other options are on the table” in terms of taking it back.

That means Ukraine would comply with the first of the five new nuclear safety principles – “do not attack a nuclear power plant” – initially outlined by Grossi at the UN security council at the end of May to avert “a catastrophic accident”.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station was captured by Russia in March 2022, the first time any reactor has been captured in war, prompting fears of a fresh incident in the same country where an explosion at Chornobyl spread radioactivity across Europe in 1986.

“Same country.”

Yeah.

The Guardian just isn’t very good at this.