State Duma Council statement on the threats arising from the shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant by the Ukrainian military

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said Gennady Zyuganov, who heads the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the parliament, put forward the initiative to convene an extraordinary meeting of the State Duma Council to discuss this issue. His colleagues Leonid Slutsky, Vladimir Vasiliyev, Sergey Mironov and Alexey Nechayev supported this initiative.

“The Council of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation firmly condemns the continuing shelling, in recent weeks, of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest NPP, by Ukrainian military units.

Critical infrastructure within the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant has been targeted by missile and artillery strikes despite the fact that compromising nuclear and physical safety at the site creates the threat of a large-scale disaster in the centre of the European continent. Kiev’s reckless actions to order the shelling of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are fraught with consequences, which can only be described as horrifying.

Ukrainian saboteurs have been disrupting power lines leading to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant on the territory of the Russian Federation.

It is clear that Kiev and its NATO patrons have not learned anything from major accidents at nuclear power stations. Russophobic ideology has prevailed over nuclear safety.

It is thanks to the dedicated and selfless service of Russian military personnel, who are performing their duties as part of the special military operation in Ukraine, that the necessary level of protection has been ensured so far for the main facilities of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and in Energodar, the nearby city.

The attacks against the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are, in essence, acts of terrorism, and they violate international humanitarian law, which entails the responsibility of the states and politicians who were involved by issuing criminal orders and executing them.

Russia has repeatedly raised this issue within the UN Security Council, pointing out that strikes against the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant by Ukraine are unacceptable. Russia has provided irrefutable evidence of the crimes perpetrated by the Kiev regime, and has called on all countries that can influence Kiev, to force Ukraine to stop this shelling immediately.

By supplying Ukraine with increasingly powerful, heavy weapons, the Western countries are taking on the role of accomplices and enablers. Kiev’s sponsors have been acting in an irresponsible and unacceptable manner by pandering to the barbaric attacks against the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, since in doing so they pose a threat to their own people.

The State Duma Council composed, among others, by the heads of parliamentary groups representing all political parties in the State Duma, calls on the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as national parliaments and inter-parliamentary organisations:

- to deliver a principled assessment of Kiev’s criminal actions.

- to demand that the Ukrainian authorities immediately cease shelling the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and other facilities, the destruction of which creates the threat of radioactive, chemical, and biological contamination, and could result in a man-made catastrophe.

The State Duma Council demands that the West cease sending weapons to Ukraine. Directed against its own people, the Kiev regime is using them to kill and wound people while also creating the risk of a nuclear disaster.

We call on the citizens of Ukraine to recognise the horrible consequences of the Kiev regime’s criminal and provocative policy.