IAEA says actively consulting on sending mission to ZNPP soon
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The IAEA says it is holding consultations to see whether it should send a mission to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
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A power-generating unit at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the city of Enerhodar, in southern Ukraine, is shown on June 12, 2008 (AP Photo/Olexander Prokopenko, File)
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Friday it was actively consulting with all parties on sending a mission to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant as soon as possible.
The agency underlined that taking the seriousness of the situation into perspective, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi had reiterated the need to send a mission to carry out basic measures to ensure physical and nuclear security and safeguards at the facility.
"[Grossi] said the IAEA is in active consultations with all parties regarding its efforts to send such a mission as soon as possible. As during two previous IAEA missions to Ukraine during the conflict, Director General Grossi would himself lead this mission," the IAEA said.
A trip by an IAEA delegation to the Zaporozhye NPP through Kiev and then across the contact line will be very dangerous, asserted Igor Vishnevetsky, the Deputy Director of the Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control at the Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday.
The head of the Zaporozhye region, Yevhen Balytskyi, said last week that the authorities were prepared to host IAEA experts and ensure their safety, Rossiya 24 broadcaster reported.
However, the regional head also stressed that ensuring the security of IAEA experts is much more difficult given that the Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant are unpredictable.
Russian forces have had complete control over the nuclear plant since March, but drone attacks by Ukrainian forces have regularly targeted the facility, leading Russia to request help from the IAEA to address security issues.
The Ukrainian military shelled the Zaporozhye NPP on August 7, targeting the spent nuclear fuel repository. At the time, the Kiev regime launched a 220mm Uragan rocket with a cluster munition.
On July 12, two Ukrainian drones attacked a building close to the Zaporozhye NPP, according to a spokesperson for the military-civilian administration in Enerhodar.
The military-civilian administration at Nova Kakhovka said the Ukrainian strike carried out on the city was executed using multiple rocket launchers HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) supplied by the United States.
Such incidents have triggered fears of a possible nuclear catastrophe and were the subject of an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council last Thursday.
