MOSCOW: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seeks increased access to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of planning acts of sabotage at the nuclear power facility.
The United Nations’s nuclear watchdog said it was seeking additional access to the Zaporizhzhia plant to “confirm the absence of mines or explosives at the site”. “With military tension increasing in the region where this major nuclear power plant is located, our experts must be able to verify the facts on the ground,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Wednesday. Recent inspections at the site by IAEA staff had not found “any visible indications of mines or explosives”, but additional access “would help clarify the current situation at the site” at a time when “unconfirmed allegations and counter allegations” were circulating, Grossi said.
Ukraine and Russia accused each other Wednesday of planning to attack the Zaporizhzhia plant, though neither side provided evidence to support their claims of an imminent threat to the facility, which has been under Russian control since the beginning of March 2022, shortly after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Citing secret reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged on Tuesday night that Russian forces had placed “objects resembling explosives” on top of several of the plant’s power units to “simulate” an attack from the outside.
