Zaporizhya power station | “We are dangerously close to a nuclear accident,” says the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Zaporizhia Post (ZNPP), which Russia has occupied since March 2022 in southern Ukraine, has been the subject of a series of drone attacks from April 7, with Moscow and Kiev blaming each other.

Asked by journalists about the origin of these recent attacks, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stressed that “in this case, it is simply impossible” to determine which country is responsible.

Because the attacks were carried out with drones that can take detours, the drones in question “could be obtained almost anywhere.”

“The scientific evidence is not there to allow us to say indisputably that it comes from this or that,” he insisted.

Wherever they come from, these “reckless attacks”, the first directly targeting Europe’s largest power plant since November 2022, “must stop immediately”, he called during a UN Security Council meeting dedicated to the issue.

“Although fortunately they did not cause a radiation accident this time, they have significantly increased the risks at the Zaporizhzhya power plant, where nuclear safety is already at risk,” added the director-general of the UN agency, which has experts on site.

It also sets a “dangerous precedent, having succeeded in gaining access to the containment structure of the reactor.”

“Two years of war are severely affecting the safety of the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant. Each of the IAEA’s seven pillars of nuclear security and safety has been compromised. We cannot stand idly by waiting for the final weight to tip the scales into a precarious balance.”

He stressed that “we are dangerously close to a nuclear accident,” calling for “rolling the dice so that we do not decide what will happen tomorrow.”

Even if the plant's six reactors are shut down, “the potential risk of a major nuclear accident remains very real.”