Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, speaks to the press before leaving the hotel with the delegation to inspect the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on September 1. (Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
The day after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s highly publicized visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a team of five inspectors remains at the site.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the UN’s nuclear watchdog “is not going anywhere” and will have a “continued presence” at the plant.
A prolonged IAEA presence there would likely help prevent the possibility of a dangerous nuclear accident. However, it is not entirely clear what this continued presence might look like.
Grossi — who left the plant Thursday — said he would brief the agency’s Board of Governors “and then we’re establishing a continued presence there … so they can continue to provide me and all of us with the assessment unbiased, neutral and technically sound of everything that might be going on there.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians have demanded that the IAEA push for the demilitarization of the area around the plant, which is currently in the hands of Russian forces.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his video message on Thursday that demilitarization was “the goal of Ukrainian and international efforts. And it is bad that we have not yet heard the proper call from the IAEA. Although we talked about it with Mr. Grossi at our meeting in Kyiv. It was the linchpin, the linchpin, the linchpin of our agreements: demilitarization and full control of our nuclear workers.”
But such a move would be beyond the IAEA’s limited mandate, and the agency shows no sign of addressing it.
Instead, Grossi stressed the technical nature of the visit to Zaporizhzhia and the examination of what he called “three or four key areas” at the plant, including emergency systems and control rooms.
The so-called “seven pillars” of the agency’s framework include the physical integrity of facilities, their security systems, off-site power supply, effective radiation control systems and reliable communications with the regulator
Some background:
The plant and the surrounding area, including the adjacent town of Enerhodar, have suffered persistent shelling that has raised fears of a nuclear accident due to the disruption of power supply to the facility. Each side accuses the other of acts of nuclear terrorism.
Russia has insisted that the military presence at the plant is to protect it; Ukraine says the Russians are using the plant’s territory to fire at Ukrainian-controlled territory on the other side of the Dnipro River.
now what
Each side is working hard to present its version of the situation to the IAEA team.
The Ukrainian side is worried that even at the plant, the Russians will try to hide the reality from the inspectors. On Thursday, Zelensky said: “We have specific information that Russia has done many cynical things in order to deceive the [IAEA] It was a theme picked up on Friday by Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, which told Telegram: “The Russian occupiers are doing everything possible to prevent the International Atomic Energy Agency mission from learning the facts about the land in Zaporizhzhia. NPP.”
Alexander Volga, head of the Russian-backed Enerhodar civil and military administration, said on Friday that the IAEA team “received relevant documents on the nuclear power plant, as well as a map of the bombings of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.
The IAEA will proceed carefully, sticking to its seven pillars to follow a strictly technical path to ensure that the plant’s systems work and that it has an uninterrupted power supply.