Nuclear inspectors forced to hide from drone attacks – IAEA

Drone threats have interrupted the work of UN inspectors at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in Russia on at least two occasions over the past ten days, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said.

In a statement on Thursday, the agency announced that next week the organization’s director general, Rafael Grossi, will make his fifth visit to the facility since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in February 2022.

Members of the IAEA’s permanent mission, launched at the Zaporozhye nuclear facility in September 2022, have “continued to hear explosions and other indications of military activities, at times near the plant itself,” the agency said.

“Due to reported drone threats in the area, the team was told to shelter indoors on August 20 and had to reschedule their planned walkdown on August 26,” the IAEA said.

The Zaporozhye nuclear plant, the largest of its type in Europe, has been under Russian control since March 2022. Throughout the conflict, Moscow and Kiev have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the facility, and the Russian Defense Ministry has said that several attempts by Ukrainian assault units to retake it have been repelled.

In the fall of 2022, Zaporozhye Region officially joined Russia together with Kherson Region and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

According to the UN watchdog, since Grossi’s last trip to the Zaporozhye plant in February this year, it “has been hit by drone strikes, experienced loss of power lines and, earlier this month, a fire caused significant damage to one of its two cooling towers.”

“These recent deeply concerning incidents make all too clear, the nuclear safety and security situation at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant remains extremely challenging,” the IAEA chief said.

“A nuclear accident must be avoided at all costs, and a nuclear power plant must never be attacked. The consequences could be disastrous, and no one stands to benefit from it,” he added.

On Monday, Grossi visited the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Russia, located near the area where Ukraine launched its large-scale incursion into internationally recognized Russian territory in early August. He warned that the fighting near the plant poses a risk of a “nuclear incident.”

Russian officials previously accused Ukrainian troops of targeting the Kursk nuclear facility with drones, one of which reportedly fell next to the plant’s storage of spent fuel last week.

Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said on Wednesday that the refusal of the West to hold Ukraine accountable for attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant has emboldened Kiev to target the Kursk NPP in the same manner. This impunity “potentially could trigger a nuclear incident with tragic consequences for the whole of Europe,” he stressed.