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UN Nuclear Inspectors Arrive In Zaporizhzhya Ahead Of Mission To Russian-Held Plant

By RFE/RL August 31, 2022

A team of UN nuclear safety inspectors has arrived in the war-torn southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya ahead of an urgent mission to the nearby nuclear power plant amid international concern at the potential for disaster at the Russian-occupied facility.

But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head leading the mission has already signaled hopes for a more prolonged mission than that envisaged by Russians controlling the area, some 450 or so kilometers southeast of Kyiv.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said inspectors were likely to reach the nuclear complex on September 1 and the initial inspection should last "a few days," but he hopes to establish a permanent mission in Ukraine to monitor Europe's largest nuclear plant.

"The mission will take a few days," Grossi said. "If we are able to establish a permanent presence, or a continued presence, then it's going to be prolonged," Grossi told reporters at a hotel in Zaporizhzhya.

"We have a very important task there to perform: to assess the real situation there, to help stabilize the situation as much as we can."

But the Russian-installed officials in Enerhodar, the town where the plant is based, said the IAEA team could stay anywhere from one to eight days.

Another official, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-appointed head of Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhya region, told Interfax that the IAEA inspectors "must see the work of the station in one day."

Separately, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's representative to international organizations in Vienna, welcomed the possibility that IAEA experts could stay at the plant on a permanent basis.

Grossi has stressed the complexity of the inspection operation in a war zone, and the need for "explicit guarantees not only from the Russians but also from the Republic of Ukraine."

"We have been able to secure that...so now we are moving," Grossi told reporters before setting out from Kyiv.

He said the team "will be reporting back after the mission."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the inspection "probably one of the top-priority questions regarding safety of Ukraine and the world today."

Zelenskiy repeated Kyiv's and the international community's call for the "immediate demilitarization of the plant," which was occupied by Russian forces early in the 6-month-old war.

Zelenskiy, who has accused Russia of "nuclear blackmail" and "nuclear terrorism" in the conflict, also said the Soviet-era atomic energy plant should be returned to "full Ukrainian control."

Meeting Grossi on August 30, Zelenskiy said he was "very thankful" for the visit and warned that the situation around the plant was "extremely menacing."

"The risk of a nuclear catastrophe due to Russian actions is not diminishing for even an hour," Zelenskiy said.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell renewed a call to Russia for the area around the power plant to be fully demilitarized.

"They are playing games. They are gambling with nuclear security," Borrell told reporters in Prague. "We cannot play war games in the neighborhood of a site like this."

Shelling dangerously close to the reactors, exhausted workers held at gunpoint, and disconnections have intensified fears of a Chernobyl-style disaster that could spread radioactivity far and wide.

Ukraine on August 30 accused Russia of shelling a corridor that IAEA officials would need to use to reach the plant in an effort to get them to travel via Russian-annexed Crimea instead. There was no immediate response from Russia.

Ukraine's armed forces General Staff said Russia was attacking with tanks, rockets, and artillery along a contact line in the Zaporizhzhya region.

Russian and Ukrainian forces have accused each other of shelling the plant, raising concerns about a possible nuclear disaster.

The IAEA's experts were set to assess physical damage to the plant, determine the functionality of safety and security systems, evaluate staff conditions, and perform urgent safeguards activities, the agency said.

The United States this week said a "controlled shutdown" of Zaporizhzhya is the "safest option" and urged Moscow to agree to a demilitarized zone around the site, echoing an earlier call from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

With reporting by Reuters, dpa and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-iaea- inspection-zaporizhzhya-grossi-russia/32011882.html

Copyright (c) 2022. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.