United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has not make any statements about a “Ukraine attack” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. On the contrary, Guterres stressed that shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant is suicidal and must be stopped immediately.
Several pro-Kremlin media manipulated a quote from the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, creating a disinformation story about the “suicide attack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.” The Russian media, manipulating the Secretary General’s words, declared that the Organization allegedly condemned “Zelensky’s actions” in “Ukraine’s attack” on its own nuclear facility.
“UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that Ukrainian military attacks on the Zaporizhzhia NPP must stop immediately,” Argumenty I Fakty claimed, citing the UN Secretary General.
At an August 8 press conference in Tokyo, Guterres spoke about the shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant captured by the Russians. He stressed that the attacks on the plant are suicidal and must be urgently stopped. Guterres made absolutely no statements about Ukraine “attacking” its own nuclear power plant.
“Any attack to a nuclear plant is suicidal thing and I hope that those attacks will end and at the same time I hope that IAEA will be able to have access to the plant and exercise its mandated competencies,” Gutierres emphasized (video 16:31-16:58).
During an August 8 press briefing, Stéphane Dujarric, the UN Secretary General’ the IAEA’s s spokesman said Russian claims that the United Nations allegedly “obstructed” the IAEA’s visit to Zaporizhzhia were ridiculous.
“This notion that the United Nations has stood in the way of an IAEA visit to Zaporizhzhia is, frankly, ridiculous. The Secretary-General has been working hand in glove with the IAEA and is supporting them in whatever way we can… we are also extremely concerned about the situation around the plant, that it could be attacked, that it could be used as a source of attacks” Dujarric said.
Invading Russian troops attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and fired on the nuclear facility on the night of March 4, 2022. As a result of the Russian attack on Europe’s largest atomic power plant, a fire broke out. Ukraine did not carry out any attacks on its own energy facilities – it was Russia that opened fire on the facility. This fact was confirmed by many of Ukraine’s Western partners and was called a war crime.
Russian forces still control the strategic facility, putting at risk not only Ukraine and a number of EU countries, but also its own Russian territories and Belarus. On August 1, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that the United States had credible evidence that Russia was using the captured Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant as a “nuclear shield.” Blinken explained that the occupying army had set up a military base and firing point at the nuclear facility, confident that the Ukrainian military would not fire back at the nuclear power plant and put the world on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe.
