Africa-Press – Botswana. The European Union (EU) will donate five million potassium iodide tablets to protect Ukrainians from potential radiation exposure at a time when Ukraine’s Zaporijia nuclear power plant is occupied by Russian forces.
In a statement released yesterday, the European Commission notes that, last Friday, “the EU received from the government of Ukraine a request [to send] potassium iodide tablets as a preventive safety measure to increase the level of protection in around the Zaporijia nuclear power plant”.
Responding to such a request, “the European Response Coordination Center quickly mobilized 5.5 million potassium iodide drugs through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to Ukraine, including five million from emergency stockpiles and 500,000 from Austria”, needs the community executive.
The support has a financial value of more than 500 thousand euros and will be delivered to Ukraine from the logistics facilities installed in Germany.
The idea is that potassium iodide tablets are “used in limited scenarios to prevent inhaled or swallowed radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid,” the European Commission said.
Cited by the note, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, stresses that “no nuclear power plant should ever be used as a theater of war”.
“It is unacceptable that civilian lives are put at risk. All military action around the Zaporijia nuclear power plant must stop immediately”, appeals the official.
On Monday, Ukraine and Russia again accused each other of attacks against Zaporijia, on the day of the departure of an international expert mission to the Ukrainian nuclear power plant occupied by Russian forces.
Russian forces took control of the Zaporijia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine about two weeks after they invaded the neighboring country on 24 February.
A series of attacks in recent weeks, denounced by both parties as being the responsibility of the other, led to fears of a serious nuclear accident at the plant.
Ukraine has four nuclear power plants in operation, with a total of 15 reactors, six of which are in the Zaporijia one.
The most serious nuclear accident ever occurred on Ukrainian soil in 1986 at the Chernobyl power plant, when Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union.
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