An environmental alliance in Taiwan has created an online petition to condemn Russia for putting the world “one step away from a nuclear disaster,” and to call on other countries with nuclear weapons to exercise restraint and refrain from making nuclear threats.
The National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform, a nationwide anti-nuclear alliance of more than 100 groups, said on Saturday that a Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine — the largest in Europe — had triggered a worldwide alarm.
“We were just one step away from a nuclear disaster,” the alliance said after fires broke out at the facility amid Russian shelling in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar on Friday.
Photo: AFP / Ukraine National Nuclear Energy Generating Co
Nuclear power accounts for 51 percent of Ukraine’s electricity supply, the alliance said, the third-most nuclear-reliant country after France and Slovakia.
The alliance said that a Russian military presence in the Chernobyl region is also risking the spread of radioactive pollution to other regions or countries.
Armed conflict in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant exponentially increases the chance of a catastrophe, the alliance said.
A nuclear crisis could be triggered by military activity that causes fire, mechanical failure, leakage of cooling water, a power outage or casualties among the facility’s staff, it said.
The alliance criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for having ordered the country’s nuclear weapons forces to be put on high alert, calling it “highly dangerous and irresponsible.”
Russia should immediately cease its invasion of Ukraine, and refrain from attacks on or near nuclear power plants and waste storage facilities, it said, adding that nuclear-armed countries should show restraint and not be provoked into threats of nuclear conflict.
The alliance is seeking help with translating its petition into English for international publication and to show Taiwan’s support for Ukraine.
The petition can be viewed at: http://tinyurl.com/NNAAPpetition.
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