The government in Kyiv wants to better document the consequences of the Russian attack on the environment. The damage is long term.
It was an announcement that was supposed to calm people down: In the future, safety experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency would be in Vienna, in short IAEAto be constantly on site in all four Ukrainian nuclear power plants, the head of the IAEA announced Rafael Grossi and the Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Schmyhal, in Paris on the sidelines of a donor conference for Ukraine. So far, only the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has been under the permanent surveillance of IAEA experts.
The presence of international specialists is intended, among other things, to prevent one of the nuclear power plants in the war zone from being targeted and a nuclear accident from occurring. Such an event would have – as the example of Chernobyl has shown – dramatic effects on people and the environment across national borders and probably long following the end of the war. But that’s just the worst possible scenario – the environmental damage caused by the Russian war of aggression is already dramatic, experts emphasize.