IAEA director General Rafael Grossi: “We came "quite close" to a nuclear accident”

Photo: Standard.co.uk

• The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power plant came "quite close" to a nuclear accident, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said.

According to the report, the IAEA believes that the nuclear power plant came "quite close" to a nuclear accident after the drone attack on Sunday.

"Our objective here is to avoid a nuclear accident," Grossi said. "Every time situations like these happen we get close to it, so it’s not an artificial or imaginative scenario."

On April 7, the Ukrainian armed forces carried out an unprecedented series of attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant. One strike hit the territory adjacent to the cafeteria, injuring three employees; one employee was seriously injured, according to Rosatom. Half an hour later, a drone attacked the cargo port area; later, a drone attacked reactor number 6, hitting the reactor rooftop.

Later that day, the IAEA published Grossi’s statement on its X page, in which the Director General called the drone attack "reckless" and called on military decision-makers to refrain from any actions that violate the basic principles of protection of nuclear facilities.

• Ukrainian military’s strikes on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) have no significance for solving military tasks, but are aimed at ‘spreading fear and panic,’ Renat Karchaa, adviser to the CEO of Russian state nuclear power corporation Rosenergoatom, said.

"What kind of military tasks should be achieved by UAVs’ strikes… on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant? There are none. But why they are being delivered? Because there is only one task basically… and it is to intimidate, to spread the fear and panic, to destabilize the interior situation," he said in a video statement posted by Izvestia daily channel on its Telegram channel.

"Ukraine's actions are like terrorism. It is pure terrorism and nothing else," Karchaa added.

• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres shares the IAEA's concern over the attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Stephane Dujarric told a briefing.

"I can tell you that the secretary-general shares the concern raised by Rafael Grossi," the IAEA director general, regarding the drone strikes hitting the nuclear power plant, he said.

The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, located in the city of Energodar, has a capacity of about 6 GW and is Europe’s largest. It has been controlled by Russian troops since late February 2022. Since then, Ukrainian army units have periodically shelled both residential areas in Energodar and the premises of the ZNPP itself, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS).

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