WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Rob Portman called for the international community to pressure Russia to stop using Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for military purposes after his Wednesday return from a bipartisan visit to Ukraine.
Six months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Ohio Republican who co-chairs the Senate Ukraine Caucus with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, met with members of Ukraine’s parliament, President Volodymyr Zelensky and Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, where they discussed the dangers of Russia firing on Ukraine’s military from Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which it has occupied while Ukrainian workers continue using it to supply power to their country.
In an interview after returning from his two-day trip, Portman said Russia is already irresponsibly using food, as well as Russian oil and gas, as weapons in its effort to take over Ukraine. He called its decision to explode bombs within a few hundred yards of the plant “incredibly dangerous,” and said it risks a catastrophe along the lines of the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which contaminated millions of acres of forests and farmlands. He said Russia should agree to a demilitarized zone around the plant and the International Atomic Energy Agency should be allowed to access it to avert a nuclear accident.
“You should never militarize a nuclear power plant, it’s just too dangerous,” said Portman, who was making his eighth trip to Ukraine.
Portman said artillery that the United States supplied Zelensky has helped Ukraine repel Russian advances. He said Ukrainian troops he met with were “extremely grateful” for what they’ve already received and that they’d also like more anti-aircraft weapons and an anti-missile defense system to help them repel attacks from the air.
“They’d just like to be able to close the skies,” said Portman. “A lot of missiles are still getting through. It’s causing devastation in a lot of cities where civilians are being attacked.”
He said the Black Sea port of Odessa has been able to send out about two dozen ships containing food that’s desperately needed in places like Africa that rely on grain from Ukraine, due to cooperation from Turkey, which controls a strait that ships must pass through.
“Fingers crossed that continues because this food is needed around the world, and it’s very important to Ukraine’s economy,” he said.
Portman said he and Klobuchar also visited the Bucha and Irpin areas outside Kyiv where Russians attacked apartment buildings and schools, and the Hostomel airport outside Kyiv, which Russian paratroopers tried to take over so they could bring airplanes full of soldiers, tanks and vehicles to knock out its capital city. Instead, they were repelled by Ukrainian National Guard defenders who changed the course of the war denying Russia use of the airport. He said Ukraine’s troops are making progress because they have higher morale, tenacity and resourcefulness than their Russian counterparts.
“I asked, ‘How could you defeat these better-trained, better-equipped Russian soldiers,’” Portman recalled. “They said ‘We were protecting our homeland, protecting our families.’”
He said Russian troops who were told they were fighting “Nazis” in Ukraine don’t see any Nazis when they get to Ukraine and don’t understand why they’re there.
“That’s why the Ukrainians are making more progress, even though they are outgunned, and many more Russian missiles are fired every day than Ukrainian missiles, and there are more Russian troops than Ukrainian troops,” said Portman.
