United Nations, July 13: The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution on Thursday demanding that Russia urgently withdraw its military and personnel from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia plant, and return the facility to Ukraine.
The resolution reiterates the assembly’s demands for Russia to immediately “cease its aggression against Ukraine” and withdraw all troops, reaffirming the world body’s commitment to Ukraine’s “sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity.” The resolution was approved by a vote of 99-9 with 60 countries abstaining and 25 countries not voting.
In opposing the resolution, Russia was joined by Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua, Syria, Burundi, and North Korea. China, India, South Africa, and many Middle Eastern countries were among those abstaining.
The resolution expresses “grave concern over the precarious nuclear safety and security situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.” It asserts that returning the plant to Ukraine’s control will ensure its safety and security and enable the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) “to conduct safe, efficient, and effective safeguards.”
Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been prominent since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading Ukraine in February 2022. Zaporizhzhia, which has six nuclear reactors, sits in Russian-controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine near the front lines and has been continually caught in crossfire.
The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about cuts to Zaporizhzhia’s electricity, which is crucial for the plant’s operation. IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the U.N. Security Council on April 15 that his agency had confirmed three attacks against Zaporizhzhia since April 7.
Both Ukraine and Russia have regularly accused each other of attacking the plant, and the accusations continued on Thursday. Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya introduced the resolution, accusing Russia of violating key principles of nuclear security and attacking the plant. Kyslytsya warned that the repercussions of a possible incident at Zaporizhzhia could be even more catastrophic than the Chernobyl disaster in 1986.
Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky accused Ukraine and its Western supporters of using the resolution to push a political agenda, claiming the only threat to nuclear facilities in Ukraine is from Kyiv’s attacks on the Zaporizhzhia plant. He alleged that the resolution’s true aim was to garner support for the outcomes of a recent Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland, which emphasized Ukraine’s territorial integrity and control over nuclear plants.