<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Russia and Ukraine on Monday traded blame before the United Nations Security Council for the attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said have put the world “dangerously close to a nuclear accident.”</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Without attributing blame, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said his agency has been able to confirm three attacks against the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant since April 7.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“These reckless attacks must cease immediately,” he told the Security Council. “Though, fortunately, they have not led to a radiological incident this time, they significantly increase the risk … where nuclear safety is already compromised.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The remote-controlled nature of the drones that have attacked the plant means that it is impossible to definitively determine who launched them, Grossi told reporters after the meeting.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“In order to say something like that, we must have proof,” he said. “These attacks have been performed with a multitude of drones.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Zaporizhzhia sits in Russian-controlled territory in southeastern Ukraine and has six nuclear reactors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fears of a nuclear catastrophe have been at the forefront since Russian troops occupied the plant shortly after invading in February 2022. Continued fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces — as well as the tense supply situation at the plant — have raised the specter of a disaster.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine and its allies on Monday again blamed Russia for dangers at the site, with the United States saying, “Russia does not care about these risks.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">“If it did, it would not continue to forcibly control the plant,” US deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the Security Council, which met at the initiative of the US and Slovenia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Russia, for its part, said Ukraine was to blame for the attacks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">“The IAEA’s report does not pinpoint which side is behind the attacks,” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “We know full well who it is.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Over the last few months, such attacks not only resumed,” Nebenzia said, “they significantly intensified.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the attacks “a well-planned false flag operation by the Russian Federation,” which he alleged Russia had designed to distract the world from its invasion of its neighbor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Zaporizhzhia facility is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world. Fighting in the southern part of Ukraine where it is located has raised the specter of a potential nuclear disaster like the one at Chernobyl in 1986, where a reactor exploded and blew deadly radiation across a vast area.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither Russia nor Ukraine in recent months has been able to make significant advances along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line crossing eastern and southern Ukraine. Drones, artillery and missiles have featured heavily in what has become a war of attrition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Russia and Ukraine have frequently traded accusations over the Zaporizhzhia plant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The most recent strikes did not compromise the facility, which is designed to withstand a commercial airliner crashing into it, the IAEA said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features. - AP&nbsp;</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/fas</div>