Newsman: The U.N. mission to safeguard catastrophe, A UN IAEA inspection team reached to Ukraine’s nuclear site and entered Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday. After being delayed several hours by shelling near the site, the team reached the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in a large convoy of SUVs and vans with a heavy presence of Russian soldiers nearby.
The delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived after months of negotiations to enable the experts to pass through the front lines and get inside Europe’s biggest nuclear plant.
“The IAEA is now there at the plant and it’s not moving. It’s going to stay there. We’re going to have a continued presence there at the plant with some of my experts,” IAEA director Rafael Grossi, the mission leader, declared after the group got its first look at conditions inside.
But he added: “I will continue to be worried about the plant until we have a situation which is more stable.”
“There were moments when fire was obvious — heavy machine guns, artillery, mortars at two or three times were really very concerning, I would say, for all of us,” Grossi said.
Just before the IAEA team arrived, Energoatom, Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, said Russian mortar shelling had led to the shutdown of one of its reactors by its emergency protection system and had damaged a backup power supply line used for in-house needs.
One of the plant’s reactors that wasn’t operating was switched to diesel generators, Energoatom said.
Once inside the plant, Grossi said, his experts were able to tour the entire site, including control rooms, emergency systems and diesel generators. He said he met with the plant’s staff and residents of the nearby village, Energodar, who asked him for help from the agency.
He reported that the team had collected important information in its initial inspection and will remain there to continue its assessment.
“It is obvious that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant has been violated several times by chance, deliberately — we don’t have the elements to assess that,” Grossi said. “And this is why we are trying to put in place certain mechanisms and the presence, as I said, of our people there.”
The Zaporizhzhia plant has been occupied by Russian forces but run by Ukrainian engineers since the early days of the 6-month-old war. Ukraine alleges Russia is using it as a shield to launch attacks, while Moscow accuses Ukraine of recklessly firing on the area.
Fighting in early March caused a brief fire at its training complex, and in recent days, the plant was briefly knocked offline because of damage, heightening fears of a radiation leak or a reactor meltdown. Officials have begun distributing anti-radiation iodine tablets to nearby residents.
Experts have also expressed concern that the Ukrainian staff is overworked and stressed out from the occupation of the plant by Russian forces — conditions they say could lead to dangerous errors.
Grossi said after his initial tour that the Ukrainian employees are “in a difficult situation, but they have an incredible degree of professionalism. And I see them calm and moving on.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow expects “impartiality” from the team.
“We are taking all the necessary measures to ensure that the plant is secure, that it functions safely and that the mission accomplishes all of its plans there,” he said.
The fighting came as Ukraine endeavored to start the new school year in the middle of a war. Just over half of the country’s schools are reopening to in-person classes despite the risks.
In other developments, authorities with the Russian-backed separatist government in the eastern region of Donetsk said 13 emergency responders were killed by Ukrainian shelling in Rubtsi, a village in neighboring Kharkiv province. Much of the fighting in recent weeks and months has centered on the area.
