Powerful explosions shook the area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) yesterday evening and again this morning, abruptly ending a period of relative calm at the facility and further underlining the urgent need for measures to help prevent a nuclear accident there, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today.
In what appeared to be renewed shelling both close to and at the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, IAEA experts at the ZNPP reported to Agency headquarters that more than a dozen blasts were heard within a short period of time in the morning local time. The IAEA team could also see some of the explosions from their windows.
Citing information provided by plant management, the IAEA team said there had been damage to some buildings, systems and equipment at the ZNPP site, but none of them so far critical for nuclear safety and security. There were no reports of casualties. The IAEA experts are in close contact with site management and will continue to assess and report on the situation.
“The news from our team yesterday and this morning is extremely disturbing. Explosions occurred at the site of this major nuclear power plant, which is completely unacceptable. Whoever is behind this, it must stop immediately. As I have said many times before, you’re playing with fire!” Director General Grossi said.
The Director General renewed his urgent appeal to both sides in the conflict to agree and implement a nuclear safety and security zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible. In recent months, he has engaged in intense consultations with Ukraine and Russia about establishing such a zone, but so far without an agreement.
“I’m not giving up until this zone has become a reality. As the ongoing apparent shelling demonstrates, it is needed more than ever,” he said.
Again, both sides blame each other, and again the IAEA can be of no help in directing efforts to bring the responsible party to heel. Who is it? Again and again, the evidence (long overdue overview post: forthcoming) shows artillery shelling of the plant in August and September comes from the Ukrainian-held north bank of the Dnipro river. Just the hated and distrusted Russians (and maybe the Chinese, etc.) are calling them out over it. "Whoever it is" had better stop, or else ... nothing. They don't have to stop and they don't want to.
The latest shelling isn't the clearest example by the limited views so far (decent views of two impacts from the 20th and one from the 19th), but it tends to implicate Ukrainian forces as well. I'll see about expanding this view in time.
Conflicting Claims
(rough collection)
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/20/europe/zaporizhzhia-iaea-warning-intl/index.html
Ukraine’s national nuclear power company Energoatom said it appeared that Russian forces were trying to hinder the country’s ability to provide electricity to its citizens.
With its shelling of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, the Russian army destroyed the infrastructure required to restart electricity production for Ukraine’s requirements. State Enterprise “National Atomic Energy Generating Company Energoatom” reported this on Facebook.
“At least 12 ‘arrivals’ were registered at the Zaporizhzhia NPP site this morning, November 20, 2022, as a result of several Russian shellings,” the report states.
As a result of the bombardment, communication trestles with their facilities, tanks with chemical desalinated water reserves, steam generator blowdown system, auxiliary systems of one of the two main power plant diesel engines, and other station infrastructure equipment were damaged. Three impacts were also detected in the vicinity of the Rayduga substation. The extent of the damage and destruction is still being determined.
https://twitter.com/TpyxaNews/status/1594266306546737152
Russian shelling of the ZNPP (video - see below for analysis)
https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1594882445769572352
Two days of shelling caused widespread damage to the #Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) on November 20 and 21. The #Russian government is continuing to escalate control over the Russian information space.
12 attacks in less than half an hour. These are the first direct attacks on the nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — since late September. In the past two months, nationalists have opened fire on the surrounding area, now on the nuclear power plant itself. Three shells hit the nuclear waste repository, six more munitions - in the cooling system. The scale of the destruction is now being assessed.
https://vz.ru/news/2022/11/19/1187447.html
The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP) was damaged as a result of strikes inflicted on Saturday by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), said Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Rosenergoatom concern.
Karchaa said on the air of the TV channel "Russia-24" that in the period from 17.15 to 17.41 Saturday, 12 strikes were inflicted on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. He stressed that we are talking about the perimeter of the station itself, and not about the industrial zone and other territories adjacent to the station,TASS reports.
The adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom said that six hits occurred on the splash pool, which is part of the cooling system of the nuclear power plant, two hits were recorded in the square of the dry storage of nuclear waste and three more hits in the area of checkpoint-2. As Karchaa noted, the blow was really massive. He stressed that such shelling can lead to nuclear contamination.
The adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom said that the damage and destruction will be clarified on Sunday morning. He noted that on Saturday the staff at the station is much less than on weekdays, and this is happiness that there were no casualties and only ended in damage. He also added that the station itself has not been hit since the end of September.
Cameras Not Lying
Six decent-sized photos of the damage that I've found (another shows a twisted remnant of one of the rockets used)
One impact can be easily placed - right in front of reactor block 5, damaging its water tanks and service passageway. Two other photos show the water tanks, and one shows the passage (4 images total). Overall, the low damage to the side vs. higher damage and debris spread out front (to the south), and the angle of the black line from detonation suggest a trajectory from just west of local north ("north" within the plant's overall 21-degree rotation), or just east of actual north - Marganets area, like they're saying.
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1594893502533742592 - improved graphic here:
The angle of damage marked purple doesn't make immediate sense, but maybe I set the impact a bit wrong, and even like this, this northern of 2 water tanks is more to the side or even behind the impact, so the upward angle expected in front is not expected here, But should it angle up to the right/rear? Maybe it has to do with the tank's circular shape? I feel I can move on from that without waiting for a sure answer.Special building 2 has another roof impact, as shown twice above, that raises a more serious problem. The wider view clearly faces east away from the reactors and towards the city of Energodar and the thermal plant's smokestacks in the distance.
In that light, the splash pattern of shrapnel marks on the right indicates the munition came in from the right, or from local SOUTH.
This is unusual. I've seen zero impacts from the south. Even maneuverable drones seem to come from the NNE, usually. Maybe this was a drone, and they finally had it maneuvere in such a tricky way?
There's also a released map of impacts that somehow doesn't include the one at reactor 5 in its right spot. 3 impacts between reactors 4 and 5 are shown, with one placed right at reactor 4's turbine hall. 5 more impacts are indicated just to the east, between the two special (ized) buildings, and one to the roof of special building 2. Just the 9 impacts are shown, just for the attack on Sunday the 20th. Shown but not mapped: a crater a ways east of reactors 1 and 2. Shown and maybe mapped (not placed): a building with windows blown out.
The next impact to the south happens after a rocket shell is heard loudly passing overhead (so it's flying partly to the south). Below: line of sight to that impact (light blue). Just from the video, the fireball gives some indication of trajectory, mainly by giving little; the fireball's movement is mainly towards-or-away-from the camera (and it's apparently away). Movement on the left-right axis is usually clearer, but faint here - perhaps a bit to the left/east. So that's to local south, southeast or SSE, on a trajectory from the north.
Neither of these hits is mapped for the 20th, but one is shown in a photo. I think. The second rocket hits not far from the pools, maybe about where that unmapped crater in front of reactors 1 & 2 is. Note that view is right between the reactor blocks, just across from the south end of special building 1 (dark blue line). I'd expect that impact was a bit further south, but how many can there be in that small area? The view I have is tiny, but suggests a trajectory close to 45 degrees with this sidewalk - more from the NW than the other impacts suggest. A better view might help correlate it to the same angle, or maybe there were 2 attack directions. After all, this is the Saturday attack, while the north (and south) clues are from Sunday's follow-up.
Follow-Up: More Analysis (add 11/27)
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