Today at 15:06
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) as a lasting symbol of national resilience, while warning that nuclear dangers persist due to Russia’s ongoing war.
UATV English informs about it, referring to Zelenskyy’s interview with Newsmax, which were recorded near Chornobyl NPP.
Here are some main takeaways from the President’s interview.
– We are at Chornobyl, marking 40 years since the world’s worst nuclear accident and disaster. Sitting here, knowing its history and the impact that it’s had on Ukraine, what does this place represent to you and your country today?
– The resilience of the people who worked here and they really been under this disaster is not respectable attitude of the Soviet Union. And you know that 90,000 people worked how to stop this disaster.
We don’t know how many people were killed, a lot. And that’s why it’s a big tragedy of the system. It’s just what it was in the Soviet Union; now the same in Russia.
Now the station, you know, it’s a symbol of resilience because after a full scale war, Russia began a full scale war on this direction. They occupied Chornobyl, and they took and stolen people. And even for today, four people are still in the Russian prison whom they stole from here.
– You were a child when this happened. I’m just curious, do you remember it? Or what you heard with the headlines at the time or how you felt?
– Those days and those moments, weeks and months, nobody heard a lot. That was the Soviet period of time, even the end of the Soviet period.
And this is the problem. They could save thousands, by the way, hundreds of thousands of people. They could save these people.
They could save children. They’ve been ill and radiated after. They didn’t save them.
It means that even people by themselves could save their children. But they tried to do everything silently. Everybody was afraid.
That is everywhere in Ukraine. I don’t remember a lot, but it was a very big tragedy for Ukraine. I think one of the biggest. I think this before the full-scale war, the biggest tragedy of Ukraine was especially this, Chornobyl.
– 40 years later, the story of Chornobyl is not over. The dangers continue, as does Russia’s war. So what impact has the war had on Chornobyl itself?
– Well, as I said, when they began full-scale war, they occupied it. And we, everybody, thought that it could be another disaster. They occupied this station, and they occupied it, by the way, the Parisian station, you know, the six-block nuclear station.
When they occupied it, they used different kinds of weapons. For example, at the Parisian station, they used just the blocks. They hit the blocks with tanks, by artillery, by different weapons.
So, of course, it could be a disaster. But God bless, we didn’t have a disaster. But still, it can be in the Parisian region because they are still occupying. It’s still in a dangerous position, and they still don’t allow us to manage and to do it safely. Yeah, so this is where we are.
– We can see where there was actually a hole blown into the shield last year.
– They attacked by drones. They (Russians) targeted once, but they attacked several times. Today, we spoke with representatives of different countries.
Now we want to do it more safe, this shelter, more safe. And I said to them, look, the problem is that we don’t need only a shelter. We have Russia, that’s why we have attacks from Belarus side.
That’s why we need air defence. Can you imagine with a big deficit in air defence? We have to use air defence in Chornobyl to save the planet, by the way, not only Ukraine. This, as you said, was targeted by a drone, which the Kremlin denies.
But Russia is also flying missiles near and overhead of this plant. We destroyed, we destroyed several times drones, which they used to attack the plant. And also, we destroyed missiles.
– The shield needs to be repaired. It’s estimated that this is going to cost at least $575 million. But this is funding that Ukraine has not secured. Where is Ukraine going to try and find that money? And if they are not carrying out the repairs in the near future, I imagine that is a large risk as well.
– First of all, we began the repair without any money. Just our people began to do it.
Our National Guard, our forces, of course, I said to them, they have to do it as quickly as possible. And we did it. Yes, but we need to repair fundamentally.
For this, we need the countries that built this, and with our support. Of course, we need this 500 million euros plus. And the problem is, where to get this money? Only to find, only to find from other partners. But Russians are absolutely crazy to attack a nuclear station. So that’s why we need to manage this.
– And you’ve called this situation, I mean, specifically with the Zaporizhzhia plant, nuclear blackmail, because that plant is facing constant threats from military hostilities.
And the Zaporizhzhia plant is the largest in Europe. It is in Ukraine, but under Russian control in occupied territories. This is also a red line for Ukraine in negotiations. So I wanted to ask you, where does this stand in peace talks regarding trying to negotiate on that topic of nuclear safety with Russia?
– Americans really have tried to find a way to mediate this question between the Russians and us.
But I’m sure 100% that we can’t manage the situation with Russia.
I’m not speaking even about the rights or about the law, and that this station is in Ukraine.
No, no, just functionally. It’s unbelievable how we, with our enemies together, can manage. We will have a huge problem there. So I think this is a mistake. This is a problem. We will not be able to do this.
Till now, there are a lot of people there, our people, Ukrainians. They are professionals. But the management, the chief staff, is from Russia.
And you see that the station doesn’t work. If we really want not to have dangerous things, not to have a disaster in the Buryatia station, and to make it possible to work, we need Ukrainian management. We are ready to share electricity or money from it with Americans.
And I said to Americans, if you want to share it with Russians, it’s up to you. If this is a compromise that we will share electricity, but we can’t, you know, we can’t pay Russians. It’s unbelievable what’s going on.
Even unbelievable such talks, because they have to pay for aggression, for occupation, and etc. But we really want to do it safely. In a safe way, only Ukrainians can do this.
They don’t have enough professionals for this station now. So it has to be without any weapon, demilitarized. But we are ready to manage it.
And I said, okay, if you want 50-50, we can do it 50-50. It’s not only the question of money and of electricity. It’s a dangerous situation in this station.
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