On the sidelines of the 67th session of the IAEA General Conference, Minister of Energy of Ukraine German Galushchenko met with the delegation of Canada – President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Rumina Velshi and Ambassador of Canada to Austria and Permanent Representative to the International Organisations in Vienna Troy Lulashnyk.
The parties discussed areas of cooperation to ensure nuclear and radiation safety at the global level. Particular attention was paid to the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant occupied by the russians.
German Galushchenko informed the participants of the meeting about the current situation at ZNPP and emphasised the threats that russians might cause during the de-occupation of the plant. He noted that the experience of the spring of 2022, when the russian military was at the Chornobyl NPP and then had to leave it, showed that the invaders completely neglected the basics of nuclear and radiation safety.
“Everything that the russians cannot take with them, they simply destroy and disable. Therefore, it is important to create an international group of experts that, together with the IAEA, will assess the situation at ZNPP after its de-occupation – the condition of the equipment, whether nuclear safety rules are being followed and what are the prospects for further operation of the plant. This is not a matter of russia’s war against Ukraine, but a matter of global nuclear safety,” the minister stressed, inviting Canadian experts to join the relevant group.
The Canadian side, in turn, assured that they stood ready to support the Ukrainian initiative and use the experience of their experts to achieve the goals of ensuring nuclear and radiation safety at ZNPP.
The participants of the meeting also stressed the importance of implementing the Peace Formula proposed by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in cooperation with the IAEA. (Government portal/Business World Magazine)
