EUROPE — The International Atomic Energy Agency said on September 18 that it had been informed a drone struck the cooling tower of a reactor unit at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia early on Thursday.
The agency said the unit was operating at the time, that its operating mode did not change, and that there was no fire.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said all attacks on nuclear facilities are unacceptable because they could endanger nuclear safety and security wherever they occur, and he repeated a call for maximum military restraint to prevent a nuclear accident.
On the same day as the first notice, the 70th IAEA General Conference in Vienna adopted a resolution titled “Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Security, and Safeguards in Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the text received 63 votes in favor, 6 against, and 46 abstentions.
The ministry’s comment on September 18, welcomed the vote, said Zaporizhzhya remains a Ukrainian plant that must return to Ukrainian control, and did not mention the Thursday Kursk cooling-tower event.
