ZAPORIZHZHIA,
Ukraine —
UN inspectors said Wednesday they would seek to establish a permanent presence at
a Russian-held plant in southern Ukraine to avoid “a nuclear accident” at the
facility on the frontline of the fighting.
اضافة اعلان
The 14-strong team from the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear
plant on Thursday which lies inside Russian-held territory.
“My mission is ... to prevent a nuclear
accident and preserve the largest nuclear power plant in Europe,” IAEA
Director-General Rafael Grossi told reporters after travelling from Kyiv to the
city of Zaporizhzhia.
“We are preparing for the real work which
begins tomorrow,” he said. “We are going to try to establish a permanent
presence for the agency.”
Fresh shelling struck the town next to
Europe’s largest atomic facility on Wednesday, with the fate of the plant on
the banks of the Dnipro River stoking global concern.
“The Russian army is shelling Energodar,”
local military official Evhen Yevtushenko said on Wednesday morning, of the
town next to the plant which had a pre-war population of 50,000 people.
Both sides have repeatedly traded blame over
attacks in the area.
‘Explicit
safety guarantees’
Although
Zaporizhzhia is normally about a two-hour drive from the plant, it was not
immediately clear how the IAEA team would reach the site which would involve
crossing the frontline to enter Russian-held areas.
But Grossi said his team had received
“explicit” safety guarantees from both sides for their visit which would last
“a few days”.
“These are very complex operations,” he said.
“We are going into a war zone, we’re going to
occupied territory, and this requires explicit guarantees not only from the
Russian Federation but also from the Republic of Ukraine and we have been able
to secure that.”
The plant has been occupied by Russian troops
since March and
Ukraine has accused Russia of deploying hundreds of soldiers
and storing ammunition there.
Kyiv has insisted the team access the plant
via Ukrainian-held territory.
“Sadly, Russia is not stopping its
provocations precisely in the direction the mission needs to travel to reach
the plant,” President
Volodymyr Zelensky said late Tuesday after meeting
Grossi.
The situation was “extremely menacing”, he
said, accusing the Russians of “continuing bombardments” and calling for “an
immediate and total demilitarization” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
In Moscow, the Russian defense ministry accused Kyiv of
“continued provocations aimed at disrupting the work of the IAEA mission”
saying it had shelled the area around the plant on Tuesday hitting a building
containing “the solid radioactive waste processing complex”.
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