The head of Energoatom said, on Friday, that the Russian army has deployed missile launchers at the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (south), which has been under Russian control since the beginning of last March, thanks to which it is bombing the Nikopol region in particular. Ukrainian operator.
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“The Russian occupiers have installed missile launch systems on the territory of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and are attacking the Nikipol region from there,” Petro Kotin, head of Energoatom, said on Telegram after an interview broadcast on Ukraine’s United News channel.
“The situation (at the factory) is very tense and the tension is increasing day by day. He said that the occupiers are transferring their equipment there, including the missile systems they have already hit across the Dnipro River and to the Nikopol region, 80 kilometers southwest of Zaporizhia.
According to him, there are still up to 500 Russian soldiers at the plant site. He stressed that they “control the site.”
Mr. Cotten emphasized that “heavy equipment (tanks and armored vehicles) and their passengers and trucks loaded with weapons and explosives are still parked at the site of the power plant”, considering the “insufficient” pressure to force them to leave and in particular criticized the international organization. Atomic Energy Agency.
He said the IAEA was “playing a political game and swinging between Russia and Ukraine”. “The IAEA has a lot of staff from Russia,” he added, citing a figure of around 100, “and even the agency’s first deputy director general, Rafael Grossi, from Russia.”
“Maybe this defines their + conservative stance,” he said.
According to the IAEA’s website, Mr. Grossi has six assistants, including Russian Mikhail Chudakov, who was appointed in 2015. The organization specifies that it employs 2,500 people from more than 100 countries.
On Thursday, according to a press release, Mr. Grossi insisted on the “importance” of the IAEA’s ability to visit the plant in order to carry out the “basic security, safety and protection operations of the world’s largest nuclear power plant. Ukraine”.
The agency has not been able to visit since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
Ukrainian authorities oppose such a visit, arguing that it would legitimize the Russian occupation of the site in the eyes of the international community, Energoatum argued several weeks ago.
The statement said that Russian forces occupy the site but Ukrainian personnel continue to operate it, noting an “extremely difficult” situation due to “continued pressure on personnel”.
Mr Grossi reiterated his “increasing concerns” about the conditions in which these employees find themselves and “the impact of such conditions on the safety and security of the plant”.
In 2021, the plant provided 20% of Ukraine’s annual electricity production and 47% of the production of the Ukrainian nuclear fleet.
