IAEA mission wants to visit Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant within next week – Advisor to Minister of Energy

FRIDAY, 26 AUGUST 2022, 09:40 – OLEKSII PAVLYSH

The visit of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is planned for next week. Currently the occupiers are artificially creating all the conditions so that the IAEA does not reach the plant.

Lana Zerkal, Advisor to the Minister of Energy, stated this in the interview with Radio NV.

"Next week, the visit of the IAEA mission is planned, and now all the logistical routes are being decided, how the mission will get there. Despite the fact that the Russians agreed that the mission will go through the territory of Ukraine, they are artificially now creating all the conditions so that the mission does not reach the object given the situation around it," Zerkal said.

She added that the main purpose of the visit of the IAEA mission is to monitor the situation at the station and take the necessary measures to protect Europe and the whole world from a possible disaster.

Previously, Bloomberg wrote, with reference to its sources, that the IAEA is preparing for a mission and wants to visit the ZNNP in occupied Energodar by 5 September.

"The IAEA wants to visit the plant before 5 September, when a two-week international mission is already scheduled to take place to examine safety systems", the message says.

Bloomberg noted that before the start of a full-scale war, the IAEA planned to visit the ZNPP for two weeks in September 2022. It was supposed to be the first inspection in the last 16 years.

Thus, the agency wants to visit the station before 5 September in order to combine two checks at once.

Report says that the IAEA inspectors will have more extensive powers than originally envisaged.

Background:

• The occupiers began to attack Zaporizhzhia NPP at the beginning of August. The Russians captured ZNPP on 4 March, and from where they are firing on Nikopol, which is located on the other side of the Kakhovka Reservoir. The parties blame each other for the attacks of the ZNPP. Shelling threatens a nuclear catastrophe.
• On 25 August, for the first time in history, the ZNPP was completely disconnected from the power grid. The mayor Dmytro Orlov of Enerhodar said that it happened after shelling, and Energoatom said that the fire caused it. Later, the IAEA reported that the ZNPP had restored the connection to the fourth line with the energy system of Ukraine, but all six power units were disconnected.

The IAEA Director General Raphael Mariano Grossi expressed hope that the visit of the IAEA mission to the ZNPP would take place within days.

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