OSCE Permanent Council No. 1561
Forty years ago, the disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant had severe and widespread consequences across Europe. It resulted in fatalities, widespread human suffering affecting countless people both directly and indirectly, long-term health effects, food shortages, and environmental pollution. Over 350,000 people were forced to abandon their homes in severely contaminated regions. The social and economic consequences of this displacement continue to be felt to this day. The disaster at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, recognized as the most severe in history, serves as a stark reminder of the potentially catastrophic consequences of nuclear accidents on people’s lives and the environment and of the crucial importance of maintaining high levels of nuclear safety and security.
The disaster also underscores why Russia’s reckless targeting of Ukrainian civilian nuclear facilities, devoted to exclusively peaceful purposes, and energy infrastructure is unacceptable and must cease immediately. We remain deeply concerned over continued nuclear safety and security risks caused by Russia’s war of aggression, its illegal seizure of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), the intense military activities in the vicinity of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and the military targeting of electrical sub-stations which are vital to the safe operation of these plants.
The European Union has long been supporting nuclear safety, nuclear security and radiation protection in Ukraine, with more than EUR 1 billion worth of activities. We have also contributed more than EUR 423 million towards the construction of the New Safe Confinement in Chornobyl, which is also priority of the G7 under the French Presidency, and just last year provided an additional EUR 37 million for nuclear safety in Ukraine, part of which will support repairs to the New Safe Confinement after serious damages by a Russian drone strike last year.
We will continue supporting Ukraine and reiterate our call for maintaining support to Ukraine, including by contributing to the funding required for the necessary repairs to the New Safe Confinement, in order to ensure its continued safe functioning.
Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, San Marino and Ukraine align themselves with this statement.