IAEA director to visit Kursk NPP amid Ukrainian offensive
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Grossi says he will personally lead the mission to the Kursk nuclear power plant "given the serious situation."
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A view of the Kursk nuclear power plant (TASS)
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi will visit the Kursk nuclear power plant (NPP) on Tuesday to "independently assess" the situation following Ukraine's cross-border offensive in the Russian region.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine in 2022, the IAEA has consistently warned of the hazards of military fighting in close ranges to nuclear plants.
Grossi said he would "independently assess what is happening" when he visits the plant, personally leading the mission "given the serious situation".
"The safety and security of all nuclear power plants is of central and fundamental concern to the IAEA," he said in a statement on Monday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of trying to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant, which is located about 60 kilometers away from the Ukrainian-Russian border, and less than 50 kilometers from the fighting.
The nuclear power plant has four reactors, only two of which are operational, while the other two are under construction. What is concerning, however, is that the reactors are the same types used for the Chernobyl plant and do not have a protective dome around them.
While IAEA officials affirmed that a Chernobyl-type accident would not be possible due to developed safety measures around such reactors, they could still emit toxic and radioactive gases and particles if heavily struck.
Russian authorities informed the IAEA that drone fragments were found some 100 meters away from the Kursk plant last Thursday, simultaneously calling for the deployment of IAEA specialists to assess the matter.
With West's knowledge, Ukraine allegedly planning strikes on NPPs
A couple of weeks ago, military correspondent Marat Khairullin cited sources as saying that the Ukrainian armed forces are reportedly preparing to detonate a dirty nuclear bomb and plan to target storage sites for spent nuclear fuel.
"Sources on the other side report that the ... [the Ukrainian armed forces] are preparing a nuclear provocation — an explosion of a dirty nuclear bomb. They plan to strike at storage sites for spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants. Possibly during another attempt by ... [Ukraine] to enter Rylsk [a town in the Kursk Region] from Hlukhiv. Special warheads for this provocation have already been delivered to the city of Zhovti Vody in the Dnipropetrovsk [also known as Dnipro] region," Khairullin wrote on his channel on Telegram.
The military correspondent added that there was a strong likelihood of strikes on both the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants.
On its part, Sputnik cited Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) as saying that the Ukrainian armed forces are planning to use warheads containing radioactive materials to attack these nuclear power plants.
In a related context, Sergei Lebedev, the coordinator of a local pro-Russian underground network, told Sputnik that the planned attacks on the Kursk and Zaporozhye NPPs are being overseen by Western intelligence services, particularly from the UK.
Lebedev stated that Ukrainian forces "are planning to carry out a missile attack with NATO weapons on the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants soon. Western intelligence agencies, mainly UK ones, are supervising the terrorist attack. Long-range missiles do not fly to targets without their knowledge."
