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International monitors remaining at a Russian-occupied atomic plant in Ukraine are staying in order to independently evaluate how continued military attacks against the facility risk a nuclear accident.
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(Bloomberg) — International monitors remaining at a Russian-occupied atomic plant in Ukraine are staying in order to independently evaluate how continued military attacks against the facility risk a nuclear accident.
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International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors arrived at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant after a harrowing journey across the frontline separating Ukrainian and Russian forces. The sounds of heavy machine-gun fire, artillery and mortars accompanied them during the crossing, agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said late Thursday.
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The agency left two teams behind at the Zaporizhzhia plant. One will stay through Sunday and conduct a detailed safety and security analysis that will go into an IAEA report being drafted. A second team will remain as a “resident expert presence” that can provide a neutral assessment of future events, Grossi said.
“It is obvious that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated several times,” the Argentine diplomat said en route back to Vienna. A long-term presence is needed because inspectors currently “don’t have the elements to assess” whether one side or the other was deliberately targeting the plant, he said.
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Attacks at Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant have been increasing since the beginning of July, with Ukraine and Russian officials blaming each other for the strikes. IAEA monitors on site could be used to assess responsibility for future incidents, as well as report back on the radiation risks caused by damage.
“Whatever you think about this war, this cannot happen,” Grossi said. “This is why we are trying to put in place mechanisms and leaving our people in place.”
Russian forces captured the plant at the beginning of the six-month war, although Ukrainian technicians are inside the facility and keeping the station operating. Shelling in the area has become a near-daily occurrence.
It’s the first time in the IAEA’s 65-year history that monitors crossed an active battlefront in order to carry out an inspection.
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