The agreement on the protective zone of the Zaporizhzhya NPP was disrupted

An agreement between Russia and the IAEA on the creation of a protective zone around the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was almost reached, but in the end the Ukrainian side blocked it. This was stated at a press conference on March 9 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The reason for the failure of the agreement was the demand of the Ukrainian leadership to demilitarize the ZNPP.

“No one, except for Ukraine itself, has ever talked about any demilitarization … IAEA Director General [Рафаэль Гросси] For several months now, he has been promoting an agreement on declaring the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant as a nuclear safety zone… We actively cooperated with the Director General of the IAEA. The agreement was close, we were ready to support it, but it was blocked by Kiev, ”RIA Novosti quotes Lavrov. Thus, the initiative of the IAEA director, who for several months had been promoting the idea of ​​creating a security zone around the Zaporizhzhya NPP, failed.

In his speech, Lavrov also criticized the UN’s approach to solving the ZNPP problem. According to the minister, Russia does not understand the desire of the secretary general of the Guterres organization to link the extension of the so-called grain deal with the demilitarization of the station. By taking such a step, Lavrov noted, the UN Secretary General, in fact, accepted Kyiv’s unilateral demands. “Although, of course, according to the UN Charter, as an international official, the main administrative person in the UN, he must take a neutral position,” Lavrov said. Guterres did talk about the demilitarization of the ZNPP on March 8 during a visit to Kyiv.

Russia established its full control over the ZNPP on March 4, 2022. From mid-summer, shelling of ZNPP facilities from Ukraine began. On September 1, an IAEA mission was able to arrive at the station, which inspected the Zaporizhzhya NPP and left their observers there. On September 6, the organization’s inspectors published their report on the state of affairs at the ZNPP, in which they described the situation as “grave and dangerous.” Speaking before the UN Security Council, IAEA director Grossi called for the creation of a nuclear safety zone around the station. Later, on October 18, he expressed the hope that it would be possible to create such a zone by the end of 2022.

Lavrov’s theses reflect reality, Dmitry Stefanovich, a researcher at the Center for International Security at IMEMO RAS, believes. For a long time, the Russian Federation has been declaring that there are no heavy weapons on the territory of the Zaporizhzhya NPP, and readiness was expressed to verify this fact both through the personal presence of IAEA representatives and with the help of national technical means, primarily satellites. Of course, the expert adds, the discussion about what to consider, for example, “the territory of the ZNPP” and “heavy weapons” has not been completed, but it seems that if there was a desire to agree, these issues could be resolved. But such a desire, Stefanovich sums up, apparently, not everyone has.