KYIV —
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday he was en route to inspect Ukraine’s
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Ukrainian forces launched a counteroffensive to
retake the occupied southern region of Kherson.
اضافة اعلان
The coastal region of Kherson and its capital city
of the same name have been contested by
Russian troops since the war broke out
six months ago.
“Today there was a powerful artillery attack on
enemy positions in ... the occupied Kherson region,” local government official
Sergey Khlan told Ukraine’s Pryamyi TV channel.
“This is what we have been waiting for since the
spring — it is the beginning of the de-occupation of Kherson region.”
Kherson city lies some 200km southwest of the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — Europe’s largest atomic facility — which has also
been occupied by Russian troops since early March.
The plant was targeted over the weekend by fresh
shelling, its operator said, with Moscow and Kyiv trading blame for attacks
around the complex of six nuclear reactors in Energodar, a town on the banks of
the Dnipro River.
Ukraine’s nuclear agency Energoatom has warned of
the risk of a radiation leak.
Russian troops “continued to fire at Energodar and
the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant” on Sunday, injuring 10, among them four
plant workers, it said in an update early on Monday.
As of 10am (7am GMT), the plant was operating “with
the risk of violating radiation and fire safety standards”.
But Russia’s defense ministry accused Ukrainian
troops of shelling near the plant on Sunday, claiming it had shot down a
“Ukrainian strike drone” approaching a nuclear fuel and radioactive waste
storage area.
And Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the
international community “to put pressure on the Ukrainian side so it stops
endangering the European continent by shelling”.
Peskov said Russia saw the IAEA visit as “necessary”
and had been “waiting for this mission for a long time”, insisting it would
ensure its safety in the face of “constant” risks.
‘Radiation blackmail’
Ukrainian President
Volodymr Zelensky on Monday called for sanctions against Russia’s state nuclear energy
agency Rosatom over the occupation of the plant.
“It’s not normal that there are no sanctions against
Rosatom for its radiation blackmail at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant,” he
said.
“The Russians are the only terrorists in the world
that have managed to turn a nuclear plant into a battlefield.”
The UN’s nuclear watchdog has for months been asking
to visit the site, warning of “the very real risk of a nuclear disaster”.
Writing on Twitter, Grossi on Monday said an IAEA
support and assistance mission was “now on its way” with the team due to arrive
“later this week”.
The United Nations has called for an end to all
military activity in the area surrounding the complex.
Ukraine initially feared an IAEA visit would
legitimize the Russian occupation of the site before finally supporting the
idea of a mission.
In its Monday update, Energoatom said the Russians
had “increased pressure on the personnel of the plant to prevent them from
disclosing (to the IAEA) evidence of the occupiers’ crimes at the plant and its
use as a military base”.
The
G7 industrial powers on Monday demanded free
access for the IAEA team to “engage directly, and without interference, with
the Ukrainian personnel responsible for operating these facilities”.
And in Stockholm, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro
Kuleba said the team’s mission was “the hardest in the history of the IAEA,
given the active combat activities undertaken by the Russian federation on the
ground.”
Ukraine was the site of the world’s worst nuclear
catastrophe in 1986, when a reactor at the northern Chernobyl plant exploded
and spewed radiation into the atmosphere.
Experts say any leak at Zaporizhzhia would more likely
be on the scale of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Energoatom on Monday warned any leak would scatter radiation
over swathes of southern Ukraine and southwestern regions of Russia.
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