The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, arrived at the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporijia this Thursday to assess the situation following the destruction of the Kakhovka dam, a Russian diplomat in Vienna announced.
The Zaporijia power station, which has six nuclear reactors and stands out from the others for being the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was occupied by Russian troops in the first days of the military offensive launched by Moscow on February 24, 2022.
The IAEA has a team at its headquarters that will be replaced during Grossi’s visit.
“The director general of the IAEA and his team have arrived at the Zaporijia nuclear power plant,” said Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov.
The IAEA chief’s visit to the plant was expected since Wednesday to assess the potential safety risks posed by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River, whose water is used to cool the six reactors that are now Closed.
The visit was postponed to Thursday for security reasons.
“It was not easy to organize a visit under these circumstances, but the Russian side did its best,” said Ulyanov, quoted by the French agency AFP.
Russian agency TASS has released a video showing a column of vehicles arriving at the plant, two carrying flags from the Vienna-based UN agency specializing in atomic energy.
Grossi, who has already visited the plant several times, will determine whether the building’s facilities will be endangered by the dam’s destruction.
The head of the IAEA said in Kiev on Tuesday that there was no immediate danger to the plant, but admitted concerns about the water level in the coolant tank.
“There is a serious risk because water is limited. I want to make my own assessment,” he said after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kiev and Moscow blamed each other for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on June 6, which caused severe flooding in southern Ukraine on February 24, 2022, aggravating the situation in the invaded country.
The Zaporijia power station has repeatedly been the target of bombings attributed to both Moscow and Kiev, sparking security concerns.
Russia stated that the plant now belongs to it because it annexed the Zaporijia region along with Donetsk, Lugansk and Kherson in September, after doing the same with Crimea in 2014.
The fighting around the plant has led the IAEA to warn of the danger of a catastrophic accident in a country that recorded the worst nuclear disaster of its kind at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986.
Source: DN
