Pursuant to the instruction of the President, Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak met with heads and representatives of foreign missions accredited in Ukraine. The meeting took place at the territory of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and was devoted to the implementation of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Peace Formula, in particular, the implementation of the points related to nuclear and radiation safety.
The event was attended by heads of embassies of the G7 countries and the EU Delegation to Ukraine, heads and members of diplomatic missions of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Türkiye, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Brazil, India, Spain, the Republic of Korea, Egypt, and the Vatican, as well as the UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine. Representatives of the embassies of Indonesia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile also joined the discussion online.
Andriy Yermak noted that this is the third meeting in this format and welcomed the ambassadors and diplomatic representatives who joined this format of consultations for the first time.
The Head of the Office of the President noted that Chornobyl NPP was chosen as the venue for this meeting for a reason, so that its participants could see with their own eyes the consequences of non-compliance with nuclear safety. Andriy Yermak reminded that after the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian troops seized Chornobyl NPP, where the globally known nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, damaged the plant's equipment and set up their positions in the radiation-contaminated soil.
"Their activities here threatened global nuclear safety. That is why we are very concerned about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia NPP, which is still occupied. And today we can only theoretically imagine what the consequences will be if something happens," he said.
Andriy Yermak emphasized that the Ukrainian Peace Formula proposed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy is intended to help resolve global crises and risks that Russia creates for the whole world through its actions.
According to him, Ukraine is initiating the joint creation of international mechanisms that can be used in the event of any armed conflict in the world and will be reflected in amendments to international law and UN General Assembly resolutions.
"We have to stop this Russian aggression and prevent other potential manifestations of aggression in Ukraine and other places on the planet. We also need to deal with the consequences of the war around the world. We must make the world safer," the Head of the Presidential Office summarized.
During their visit to the Chornobyl NPP, foreign diplomats observed the operation of the Interim Spent Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2). They also observed the new safe confinement complex built to protect the Chornobyl NPP personnel, the public and the environment from the impact of nuclear and radiation hazards.
The Chornobyl NPP employees told the heads of foreign diplomatic missions about what happened at the plant during its occupation by Russian troops for 35 days at the beginning of the full-scale war. In particular, the power lines supplying the plant's cooling systems were destroyed, resulting in an increase in the radiation level. The scientific laboratory was also damaged, and the radiation monitoring system was destroyed. The damage caused by the occupiers' actions to the Exclusion Zone is estimated at 100 million euros.
During the conversation with the diplomats, Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ruslan Strilets noted that in order to restore nuclear safety in the world, Ukraine must have control over all such facilities as the Chornobyl and Zaporizhzhia NPPs.
The Minister also said that Russia's aggression against Ukraine has already caused more than $54 billion in environmental damage. At the COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt, the President of Ukraine proposed creating a platform to assess environmental damage from the war, and this work is already underway. The International Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of War, co-chaired by Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak and former EU Commissioner for the Environment and former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström, is working on the issue of compensation for damage and countering Russia's ecocide.
For his part, Minister of Energy of Ukraine Herman Halushchenko noted that during the occupation, the staff of the Chornobyl NPP worked for 600 hours without rotation, being in fact prisoners next to armed people.
He briefed the diplomats on the current situation and risks associated with the ongoing Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP, as well as the consequences of the Kakhovka HPP dam explosion.
Officials emphasized that the only way to ensure nuclear safety is to withdraw Russian troops from the Zaporizhzhia NPP and return the plant to Ukrainian control. This is why radiation and nuclear safety, ecocide and immediate environmental protection are important points of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Peace Formula, for the implementation of which the whole world must join forces.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Mykola Tochytskyi emphasized that the Ukrainian Peace Formula and its key elements have already been upheld in a number of international documents, including the UN General Assembly resolution of February 23, 2023. He also informed that a number of elements of the Ukrainian Peace Formula have been taken up by various states that have expressed their willingness to become leaders or participants in the implementation of certain points.