The United Nations atomic agency said Russia had prevented its inspectors from accessing all parts of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine to investigate Kyiv’s claims that Moscow is planning to sabotage the plant.
Russian forces occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant in the first weeks of its invasion of Ukraine and the plant is situated close to a front line where Ukraine last month launched its long-awaited counteroffensive. Before the war, the plant accounted for around 20% of Ukraine’s electricity supply.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged accusations for months about plans to endanger the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi has warned the two sides are “playing with fire” by undertaking military action at or near the plant.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for international pressure on Russia to prevent an attack on Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, saying that his government had intelligence that the Russian military had placed “objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units.”
“It is the responsibility of everyone in the world to stop it, no one can stand aside, as radiation affects everyone,” he said in a video statement.
The following day, the IAEA, which has a small team of inspectors based at the plant, took the rare step of publicly pressing Russian authorities to give its staff access to specific locations at the plant.
“The IAEA experts have requested additional access that is necessary to confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site,” the agency said in its report Wednesday. “In particular, access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 is essential, as well as access to parts of the turbine halls and some parts of the cooling system at the plant.”
In a new statement Friday, the agency said its inspectors had received additional access to certain areas of the plant, including the large cooling pond used to lower heat from the reactors and ponds storing spent fuel. The agency said it has so far not observed any indications of mines or explosives at the site.
However, Grossi said his inspectors hadn’t received access to the rooftops of the two reactors or to parts of the turbine halls. He said he was hopeful access would be granted soon.
“The Director General reiterated the importance of the IAEA team being able to check all parts of the ZNPP to monitor full compliance” with safety principles to protect the plant, the statement said.
Russia’s representative at the IAEA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Russian officials have claimed that Ukraine is planning an assault on the plant. Kyiv last year launched at least one unsuccessful attempt to take the plant back using special forces, according to people familiar with the matter.
While Grossi has warned that military action near the plant has the potential to cause a major disaster, experts have said the robustness of the plant’s infrastructure and the fact that the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia have been put into shutdown mode makes a large-scale nuclear disaster, with radiation spreading far from the plant, unlikely.
Mark Foreman, associate professor and nuclear expert at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said it would likely take a deliberate act of sabotage at the plant to cause a major accident.
Moscow and Kyiv on Tuesday accused each other of planning attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant. The U.N.’s nuclear body said the plant has been reconnected to a key back-up power cable and experts say a disaster is unlikely. Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
“If you have people who are willing to enter high radiation areas in the plant to carry out acts of sabotage then it would be possible to cause a Fukushima like accident,” he said, referring to the March 2011 meltdown of the nuclear plant in Japan.
The IAEA spent months negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to try to sign them up to commitments neither to locate military equipment under Russian control at Zaporizhzhia nor for Ukrainian forces to fire on the plant.
In late April, Britain’s Defense Ministry reported that Russian forces had built sandbag positions on the roofs of several reactors, an early indication that Moscow planned to use the reactors as defensive positions against any Ukrainian offensive.
On Friday afternoon, British Foreign Secretary
James Cleverly renewed Western calls for Russia to fully cooperate with the agency.
“Russia must not endanger the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant further,” he said on Twitter. “The IAEA must have full access to inspect the plant and ensure nuclear safety and security.”
Until this week, the IAEA has trodden carefully in its public comments on what is happening at Zaporizhzhia, caught between the accusations from Ukraine and Russia about the other side’s actions there. Grossi has traveled to the plant three times over the last year to inspect the situation and bring equipment to the plant.
When Ukrainian officials in mid-June started to make claims that Russia was planning to trigger a nuclear disaster at the plant by mining the site’s cooling pond and sending vehicles with explosives into the plant, the agency didn’t initially respond.
However, last Friday, Grossi, who visited Zaporizhzhia with a team of inspectors last month, gently pushed back on the Ukrainian claims.
“I was there. I did not see this kind of development. Our teams are there and they are reporting every day,” Mr. Grossi said in an interview with France 24 television station. He added that the situation at the plant was very volatile and he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of a future attack.
“I think anything can happen. This is what worries me,” he said.
Because that’s not suspicious, at all …
UN Special Forces should UNblock them. It’s a pun…get it?
But they cry indignation at the Azov commanders being returned from Turkey! How much more despicable can someone get? (Actually wait: by tomorrow or a couple more days they will get even more despicable).
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The United Nations atomic agency said Russia had prevented its inspectors from accessing all parts of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine to investigate Kyiv’s claims that Moscow is planning to sabotage the plant.
Russian forces occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant in the first weeks of its invasion of Ukraine and the plant is situated close to a front line where Ukraine last month launched its long-awaited counteroffensive. Before the war, the plant accounted for around 20% of Ukraine’s electricity supply.
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged accusations for months about plans to endanger the plant. The International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi has warned the two sides are “playing with fire” by undertaking military action at or near the plant.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for international pressure on Russia to prevent an attack on Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear plant in Europe, saying that his government had intelligence that the Russian military had placed “objects resembling explosives on the roof of several power units.”
“It is the responsibility of everyone in the world to stop it, no one can stand aside, as radiation affects everyone,” he said in a video statement.
The following day, the IAEA, which has a small team of inspectors based at the plant, took the rare step of publicly pressing Russian authorities to give its staff access to specific locations at the plant.
“The IAEA experts have requested additional access that is necessary to confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site,” the agency said in its report Wednesday. “In particular, access to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 is essential, as well as access to parts of the turbine halls and some parts of the cooling system at the plant.”
In a new statement Friday, the agency said its inspectors had received additional access to certain areas of the plant, including the large cooling pond used to lower heat from the reactors and ponds storing spent fuel. The agency said it has so far not observed any indications of mines or explosives at the site.
However, Grossi said his inspectors hadn’t received access to the rooftops of the two reactors or to parts of the turbine halls. He said he was hopeful access would be granted soon.
“The Director General reiterated the importance of the IAEA team being able to check all parts of the ZNPP to monitor full compliance” with safety principles to protect the plant, the statement said.
Russia’s representative at the IAEA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Russian officials have claimed that Ukraine is planning an assault on the plant. Kyiv last year launched at least one unsuccessful attempt to take the plant back using special forces, according to people familiar with the matter.
While Grossi has warned that military action near the plant has the potential to cause a major disaster, experts have said the robustness of the plant’s infrastructure and the fact that the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia have been put into shutdown mode makes a large-scale nuclear disaster, with radiation spreading far from the plant, unlikely.
Mark Foreman, associate professor and nuclear expert at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, said it would likely take a deliberate act of sabotage at the plant to cause a major accident.
Moscow and Kyiv on Tuesday accused each other of planning attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear-power plant. The U.N.’s nuclear body said the plant has been reconnected to a key back-up power cable and experts say a disaster is unlikely. Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters
“If you have people who are willing to enter high radiation areas in the plant to carry out acts of sabotage then it would be possible to cause a Fukushima like accident,” he said, referring to the March 2011 meltdown of the nuclear plant in Japan.
The IAEA spent months negotiating with Russia and Ukraine to try to sign them up to commitments neither to locate military equipment under Russian control at Zaporizhzhia nor for Ukrainian forces to fire on the plant.
In late April, Britain’s Defense Ministry reported that Russian forces had built sandbag positions on the roofs of several reactors, an early indication that Moscow planned to use the reactors as defensive positions against any Ukrainian offensive.
On Friday afternoon, British Foreign Secretary
James Cleverly renewed Western calls for Russia to fully cooperate with the agency.
“Russia must not endanger the safety of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant further,” he said on Twitter. “The IAEA must have full access to inspect the plant and ensure nuclear safety and security.”
Until this week, the IAEA has trodden carefully in its public comments on what is happening at Zaporizhzhia, caught between the accusations from Ukraine and Russia about the other side’s actions there. Grossi has traveled to the plant three times over the last year to inspect the situation and bring equipment to the plant.
When Ukrainian officials in mid-June started to make claims that Russia was planning to trigger a nuclear disaster at the plant by mining the site’s cooling pond and sending vehicles with explosives into the plant, the agency didn’t initially respond.
However, last Friday, Grossi, who visited Zaporizhzhia with a team of inspectors last month, gently pushed back on the Ukrainian claims.
“I was there. I did not see this kind of development. Our teams are there and they are reporting every day,” Mr. Grossi said in an interview with France 24 television station. He added that the situation at the plant was very volatile and he wasn’t ruling out the possibility of a future attack.
“I think anything can happen. This is what worries me,” he said.
Because that’s not suspicious, at all …
UN Special Forces should UNblock them. It’s a pun…get it?
But they cry indignation at the Azov commanders being returned from Turkey! How much more despicable can someone get? (Actually wait: by tomorrow or a couple more days they will get even more despicable).
Jeez, I wonder what they are hiding…