Grossi: IAEA team successfully completes assessment of Zaporozhye NPP

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
1 Sep 2022 20:52

The head of the agency Rafael Grossi said the IAEA mission managed to collect a lot of important information in a few hours of work at the Zaporozhye NPP.

Members of mission from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency prepare to visit the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)

The IAEA mission managed to collect a lot of important information in a few hours of work at the Zaporozhye NPP, the head of the agency, Rafael Grossi, said on Thursday.

"We were able in these few hours to gather a lot of information. The key things I wanted to see, I saw," Grossi said.

Earlier in the day, the IAEA announced the arrival of its mission led by Grossi to the ZNPP.

The head of the delegation of Rosatom and employees of the NPP led the IAEA delegation through its territory and showed the sections of the station that were damaged during the shelling by Ukrainian troops.

The IAEA mission saw one of the Ukrainian shells fired at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

It missed the used nuclear fuel storage facility by a couple of dozen meters.

Korcha, an assistant to the head of Rosatom, told the IAEA director pic.twitter.com/1IS8O5g6SL
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During the assessment, an adviser to Rosatom's head told Grossi said that Russia, Ukraine, and Europe will be on the verge of serious danger until the Ukrainian troops stop shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

"We are talking about a peaceful atom. For us, what is happening here is an anomaly. But we absolutely understand that until the shelling [from Ukraine] stops, Ukraine, Russia, Europe are on the verge of a very serious danger," he said. "This is not politics."

The representative of Rosatom showed Grossi an unexploded shell of the Ukrainian MLRS Uragan, which did not fly only a few tens of meters to the storage of spent nuclear fuel and fell a couple of hundred meters from the fourth power unit of the ZNPP.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered comments on the matter earlier today saying that Russia expects to see an objective assessment of the situation at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant from experts sent by the IAEA.

"We expect objectivity. Although all the others who are involved in this visit in one way or another, with its preparation and attempts to make it difficult, they clearly do not want the IAEA mission to draw objective conclusions," Lavrov said during a meeting with students, adding that Russia takes all measures to ensure safety at the ZNPP and let IAEA experts do their work.

Lavrov also commented on reports which claimed that earlier on Wednesday, 60 Ukrainian paratroopers attempted to seize the ZNPP and were in large part neutralized.

"I believe that this is a very high price to pay for the world community to know the truth, but if this is the way Ukraine wants to achieve it and wants to show what it is all about, I only hope it does not lead to any kind of catastrophe," Lavrov added.