U.N. board passes resolution calling on Russia to leave Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

Poland and Canada proposed the resolution on behalf of Ukraine, which is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s top decision-making body

The U.N. atomic agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution on September 15 calling on Moscow to immediately end its occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant, where shelling of the facility and nearby areas in recent weeks heightened fears of a possible radiation disaster.

Poland and Canada proposed the resolution on behalf of Ukraine, which is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s top decision-making body. It passed with 26 votes. Russia and China voted against it while seven Asian and African countries abstained.

The document adopted a markedly harsher tone than previous statements by officials from the Vienna-based IAEA, who largely limited themselves to calling for a “security zone” around Europe’s largest nuclear plant. The resolution says the board “deplores the Russian Federation’s persistent violent actions against nuclear facilities in Ukraine, including forcefully seizing control of nuclear facilities.”

It urges Russia to “immediately cease all actions against, and at, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and any other nuclear facility in Ukraine.”

Russia seized radioactive waste facilities in Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, at the start of the war but later withdrew.

The resolution also appeals to Russia to return control of the power station to Ukrainian authorities, adding that the presence of Russian troops at the plant significantly increases the risk of a nuclear accident. The plant continues to be operated by its pre-occupation Ukrainian staff, in conditions that the IAEA previously described as endangering the site’s safety.

Russia’s permanent mission to international organizations in Vienna, including the IAEA, hit out at the resolution as “anti-Russian.”