Akm Shehabuddin Kisslu: A team from the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog headed to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Monday, said the agency’s chief.
Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, has been a hot spot in the ongoing conflict.
“We must protect the safety and security of Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest nuclear facility,” Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said in a post on Twitter.
An IAEA team he is leading will reach the plant on the Dnipro river near front lines in southern Ukraine later this week, said Grossi without specifying the day of their expected arrival.
The IAEA separately tweeted that the mission would assess physical damage, evaluate the conditions in which workers are working at the plant, and “determine functionality of safety & security systems”. It would also “perform urgent safeguards activities”, a reference to keeping track of nuclear material.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s military said early on Monday that Russian forces shelled military and civilian infrastructure in the Donetsk region. Russia has been denying targeting civilians since the special military operation started.
The conflict has touched off Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II.
The United States and its allies have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia and sent assistance to the Ukrainian government.
Russia said sanctions will never make it change its position and Western arms supplies only drag out the conflict.
