Russia condemns strike on Iranian nuclear power plant
A missile strike just meters from an operational Iranian nuclear reactor shows “flagrant disregard” for international safety principles, Russia’s nuclear corporation, Rosatom, which helped build the plant and whose personnel still work at the facility, has warned.
The Iranian authorities reported that a US or Israeli munition hit the territory adjacent to the Bushehr NPP on Tuesday. Rosatom Director General Aleksey Likhachev said the attack was carried out next to the metrology service building in close proximity to the operating power unit. It marks the first confirmed attack on the facility’s grounds since the unprovoked US-Israeli campaign against Iran that began on February 28.
“Firing on operating nuclear energy facilities is a flagrant disregard for the key rules and principles of international security,” Likhachev said on Tuesday, adding that Moscow “categorically condemns what happened and calls on the parties to the conflict to make every possible effort to de-escalate the situation in the area of the Bushehr NPP.”
No casualties were reported as a result of the strike and radiation levels at the site remain normal, according to Rosatom. Approximately 480 Russian nationals continue working at the plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that it was informed by Tehran that “a projectile hit the premises of the Bushehr NPP on Tuesday evening.” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi reiterated his call for “maximum restraint during the conflict to prevent risk of a nuclear accident.”
However, Russia’s envoy to the IAEA and other international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, has suggested that the agency’s response is not “commensurate with the gravity of the situation,” stressing that “the possibility of another strike cannot be ruled out,” and that this poses “a real risk of a major nuclear disaster, which can dramatically affect the whole region.”
While neither Israel nor Washington has yet responded to the reports, US President Donald Trump said last week that Washington does not intend to attack nuclear power plants on Iranian territory.
Bushehr, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, was built with Russian assistance. Its first 1,000 MW unit was commissioned in 2013, with construction of a second and third phase beginning in 2016. The facility remains a critical piece of energy infrastructure in the region.
