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Russia Bombing of Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant, Hoax Of the Year?

March 5, 2022 (EIRNS)—Serious analysts are raising serious doubts about the Ukraine-U.K.-U.S. narrative accusing Russia’s from “bombing” Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with six reactors, the largest nuclear compound in Europe.

The NATO narrative says that Russian troops took over the nuclear plant Friday morning March 4, “after shelling” it during the night. The local mayor of the city of Enerhodar claimed in a Telegram post that the plant was “on fire” due to “continuous enemy shelling.”

Then, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba lashed out on Twitter that Russia had attacked the power plant “from all sides” and warned that if the nuclear station “blows up,” it would be “10 times larger than Chernobyl.” An unnamed Ukrainian official also reportedly told U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) that one reactor was “hit,” but added that a meltdown was “unlikely.”

Later that night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “nuclear terrorism” and discussed the situation with U.S. President Joe Biden. “POTUS spoke with President Zelenskyy this evening to receive an update on the fire at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant,” the White House tweeted. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm also said she was in touch with Kiev’s energy minister and so was U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who rushed into convening a UN Security Council meeting following a request from several countries. U.S. Republicans then followed with their calls to “take out” Putin.

The facts are totally different. Russian troops were in the area as early as Monday, Feb. 28, fully confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which stated, in its update No. 4 posted on its website that day: “On 27 Feb., Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry informed the IAEA that Russian military forces were advancing close to the largest of the sites—the Zaporizhzhia NPP in eastern Ukraine. Additional information received on 28 Feb. from the operator confirmed that the Russian forces were operational near the site but had not entered it at the time of reporting.” On March 2, the IAEA reported:

“Russia has informed the IAEA that its military forces have taken control of the territory around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia NPP, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said today. In an official letter to the Director General dated 1 March, the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna also said personnel at the plant continued their ‘work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation. The radiation levels remain normal.’ ”

This was two days before the alleged “shelling” of the facility. Only lunatics could argue that Russian military would “shell” or “bomb” a nuclear power station controlled by the Russian forces themselves. An overall strategy of irradiating one’s own battlefield seems also quite surrealistic. Earlier in the week, Chernobyl was taken over by the Russian army and was under joint control by both countries.

The Russian Defense Ministry later offered its own account. According to TASS,

“Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov issued an official statement Friday morning [March 4] on the shooting and fire that had taken place at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant earlier in the day. ‘Last night, the nationalist regime in Kiev attempted to carry out a horrible provocation in the vicinity of the station,’ he announced, claiming that Russian troops patrolling the territory had been attacked by a Ukrainian sabotage group. According to the spokesman, Ukrainian forces had attacked the Russian soldiers at around 2 a.m. local time, opening heavy fire from the training facility next to the power station to ‘provoke a retaliatory attack on the building.’ The Russian patrol had neutralized the group’s firing points, but the saboteurs had set fire to the training facility as they retreated, Konashenkov said. The fire was put out by Ukrainian State Emergency Service firefighters.”

The video footage taken from the surveillance camera’s show that and nothing else. The bright light appearing on the footage, described as shells by the Western media, has been identified by a professional military sources as coming from a flare grenade (not a destructive weapon) and not from shelling or bombing. Western media hysterically describes the flares as shells, and causing a “near nuclear disaster” by the “madman Putin.”

Quoting from General Konashenkov’s briefing, Antiwar.com wrote: “ ‘Zelenskyy’s prompt statements about the alleged threat to the nuclear power plant and his talks with Washington and London leave no doubt. The purpose of the provocation of the Kiev regime at a nuclear facility is an attempt to accuse Russia of creating a source of radioactive contamination,’ the ministry continued.”

Antiwar.com also reports that Zaporizhzhia NPP “has come under assault in the past, long before Russia’s invasion last week,” citing British Independent coverage that the neo-Nazi Right Sector had been backed off by local police and plant security from an attack in May 2014.

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