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Russia officially takes ownership of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe

Russian President Vladimir Putin has decreed that Ukraine's Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is a Russian federal asset, absorbing all facilities and employees as the Kremlin's push to the east loses momentum against Ukrainian forces.

The nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, was captured by Russian forces in March, with Ukrainian employees running daily operations under siege conditions that have worried the world's nuclear regulator, the IAEA, for the vulnerability of the plant to possible disasters.

In a decree released Wednesday by the Russian press agency Tass, Putin ordered the official takeover of Zaporozhye's nuclear assets, stating that: “The Russian government will take steps to establish federal ownership of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and other facilities. necessary for its functioning ".

According to Tass, Putin also instructed the government to create the federal state unitary company of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, granting "the joint-stock company Operator of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant the status of organization with operations in the nuclear energy sector".

The Ukrainian state energy agency responded with a categorical rejection of Putin's decree, announcing that the head of the state energy agency would take control of the plant. "All further decisions regarding the operation of the plant will be made directly by the central office of Energoatom," said the head of the Ukrainian state energy agency Petro Kotin in a video speech posted on Telegram, as reported by Reuters. “We will continue to work according to Ukrainian laws, within the Ukrainian energy system, within Energoatom,” said Kotin. Obviously, however, to make decisions operational, it is necessary to have physical control of the power plant which is now in the hands of Moscow. However, even this decision by Putin will weigh heavily on the possibility of negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, at this point more and more difficult.

The plant is located in Zaporizhzhia, a region that Putin officially integrated into Russia on Wednesday following a sham referendum. Russia has now annexed four partially Russian-occupied territories to Ukraine. Three weeks ago, Ukraine was forced to close the nuclear plant due to heavy bombing. At the time of Putin's decree, Ukraine was considering whether to restart Zaporozhye to ensure that equipment was not compromised and to resume a minimum of energy production.


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The article Russia officially takes ownership of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe comes from ScenariEconomici.it .


This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-russia-prende-ufficialmente-la-proprieta-della-centrale-nucleare-di-zaporozhye-la-piu-grande-in-europa/ on Thu, 06 Oct 2022 08:00:38 +0000.