JAKARTA - Ukraine wants the United Nations to send peacekeepers to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (PLTN), even without an agreement with Russia to build a safe zone there, the head of the country's nuclear power company said.
Ukraine has been calling on UN peacekeepers at the site since September. But the comments were the first time a Ukrainian nuclear official suggested a peacekeeping force should publicly deploy, as there was no agreement to make a safe zone at the plant, which Russia took over immediately after invading the country on February 24.
PLTN Zaporizhia, the largest in Europe, has repeatedly experienced shootings and blackouts, raising fears of radioactive disasters. Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the shooting
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), hopes to broker a deal between Russia and Ukraine in the safe zone in January.
Meanwhile, Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine's state nuclear power company Energoatom, said the absence of a meaningful UN Security Council deal, in which Russia is a permanent member, must deploy peacekeepers.
"The problem is there is no solution (at) the IAEA level," Kotin told Reuters in an online interview from his office in Kyiv.
"The process is not progressing. We will propose to take this issue to its next level," he said.
The prospects are uncertain. Russia can veto any Security Council resolution for peacekeepers. But Kotin said this would raise public awareness of Moscow's actions.
He said peacekeeping forces would be a way to end Russia's control of the plant.
However, the absence of a safe zone could complicate the determination of the boundaries to the control area of peacekeeping missions, potentially endangering peacekeeping forces.
In an internal meeting on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials will discuss how to raise the issue of peacekeepers to the Security Council, Kotin said.
In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree transferring the status of a power plant from Energoatom to a Russian subsidiary of Rosatom, a move Kyiv said was the same as theft.
Russia has forced 1,500 Ukrainian workers in Zaporizhia to sign a contract saying they are now working for the Rosatom unit, Kotin said.
There were about 6,000 workers at the factory, compared to 11,000 before the war. Kotin said about 10 percent of factory operations staff in Ukraine were among those who signed contracts and the rest were in non-operational positions.
Extinguishing can be dangerous for nuclear plants unless careful care is carried out, and Kotin is concerned that communication disruptions between staff and Energoatoms due to Russian activity could cause damage to the Zaporizhzhia plant.
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