KYIV: The Red Cross on Thursday demanded a halt to all military operations around a Russian-held nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, warning the consequences of a strike could be “catastrophic” (pic).
His remarks came as a top-level team of inspectors from the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, were en route to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant which is located on the frontline between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
“It is high time to stop playing with fire and instead take concrete measures to protect this facility and others like it from any military operations,” Robert Mardini, director general of the ICRC, told reporters in Kyiv.
“The slightest miscalculation could trigger devastation that we will regret for decades.”
The area around the plant—Europe’s largest nuclear facility—has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides accusing each other of responsibility, sparking global concern over the risk of an accident.
Mardini said it was “encouraging” that the IAEA team was en route to inspect the plant because the stakes were “immense”.
“When hazardous sites become battlegrounds, the consequences for millions of people and the environment can be catastrophic and last many years,” he said.
“In the event of a nuclear leak, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to provide humanitarian assistance.”
Just before the UN team left for the Zaporizhzhia plant in Russian-held territory, Ukraine accused Russian forces of staging a sustained attack on Energodar, the town next to the facility.
But Moscow hit back, accusing Kyiv of smuggling in a large number of military “saboteurs” with Russian forces taking “measures to annihilate the enemy”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the funeral of the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev due to scheduling issues, his spokesman said on Thursday.
“The farewell ceremony and funeral will take place on September 3 but unfortunately the president’s work schedule will not allow him (to attend),” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov said that Putin had paid his last respects to Gorbachev at the hospital where he died on Tuesday, aged 91.
Russian state TV showed Putin placing a bouquet of red roses near Gorbachev’s open casket in a big empty hall before pausing for a moment of silence.
And, Russian forces have been forcibly transferring Ukrainian civilians, including those fleeing hostilities, to areas under their control, Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday.
Forced transfers “are a serious violation of the laws of war amounting to a war crimes and a potential crime against humanity,” the non-governmental organisation said.
HRW interviewed 54 people who went to Russia or knew people who did. Some of them were also helping Ukrainians trying to leave Russia after Moscow’s forces invaded Ukraine at the end of February.
Many of the people forcibly transferred were fleeing the city of Mariupol, a port that suffered a devastating siege and heavy shelling before being seized by Russian troops.
Others were from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine.
“Of course, we would have used the opportunity to go to Ukraine if we could have,” one woman transferred from Mariupol told HRW.
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