The situation at the Zaporizhia power plant in southeastern Ukraine, which has been controlled by the Russians since March, is becoming more and more dangerous, according to Raphael Grosi, reporting to The Associated Press.
“All nuclear safety principles have been breached” at the plant, he warned, adding that “what is at stake is very serious and very dangerous”.
Therefore, the UN The agency’s director general appealed to Russia and Ukraine to urgently allow the arrival of experts to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.
According to him, the physical integrity of the nuclear power plant was not respected, it was bombed at the beginning of the war, and when it was taken over by the Russian army, The two countries blamed each other for attacks in the region.
There is “an ironic situation” where the plant is controlled by Russia, but it will lead to inevitable moments of friction and violence, he said, between the skullduggery of officials who continue nuclear operations.
He said information was “few and patchy” despite having some contact with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials.
Croci also warned that supplies of equipment and spare parts were disrupted, “so there is no guarantee that the plant will get everything it needs”.
The IAEA must carry out urgent inspections to ensure that nuclear materials are protected, and “a lot of nuclear materials must be inspected,” Raffaello Croci stressed, from day one, “go there to do this safety and security assessment, to do the necessary repairs and help, as happened in Chernobyl.”
Russia’s seizure of Zaporizhia has renewed fears that the largest of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors could be damaged, triggering another emergency similar to the 1986 Chernobyl accident, which took place 110 kilometers north of the Ukrainian capital.
After the invasion, which began on February 24, Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site, but returned control to the Ukrainians in late March.
Grosi visited Chernobyl on April 27 and announced in a message posted on the social network Twitter that the security situation was “like a flashing ‘red light'”.
However, on Tuesday he assured that the IAEA had set up “an assistance mission” at Chernobyl.
