West Gave Carte Blanche To Kiev To Continue Damaging ZNPP, Making It Accomplice - Moscow

Western countries have given a carte blanche to Ukraine to continue reckless attempts to cause irreparable damage to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which makes them complicit in Kiev's crimes, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of Governors adopted a resolution demanding that Russia abandons its "baseless claims" of ownership of the ZNPP, and immediately withdraws its military from the plant, so that "competent Ukrainian authorities regain full control of the plant to ensure its safe and secure operation."

"Western sponsors once again showed their duplicity, gave a carte blanche to the regime of (Ukrainian President) Volodymyr Zelenskyy to continue reckless attempts to cause irreparable damage to the ZNPP. In fact, they are accomplices in the crimes committed by Kiev, to which there is no justification," Zakharova said.

On Sunday, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, told Sputnik that Ukrainian troops subjected the ZNPP to massive artillery shelling, damaging strategic facilities.