Kyiv, UKRAINE — A team of international nuclear experts headed from capital Kyiv to Ukraine’s endangered nuclear power plant on Wednesday morning, heading south toward the front lines where fighting has escalated in recent weeks. headed to
The group includes 14 experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog. They left Kyiv on Wednesday morning after a press conference outlining one of the most complex missions in the agency’s history. The IAEA has also worked in Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
A senior Ukrainian official warned that many challenges remained on the way for the group to reach the factory. It’s about finding a passage.
To reach the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, the team must pass through frontline craters and trenches and enter areas where frequent artillery fire increases the threat of a nuclear disaster. The team could reach the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces on Wednesday afternoon.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters in Kyiv: “As you know, we have a very important task to assess the actual situation there and help stabilize the situation as much as possible. I have to,” he said. Before leaving in a convoy of armored SUV vehicles.
The observers intend to spend several days at the nuclear facility occupied by Russia and are trying to establish a permanent surveillance mission at the factory, Grossi said. “After six months of steady efforts, the IAEA is about to move to the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant,” he said.
The Russian-appointed head of Zaporizhia region Yevhen Balitsky countered Grossi, saying the visit was expected to last only one day and that the goals of the visit expressed by the delegation were vague.
“They are given a day to inspect the operation of the factory,” he said, adding, “If they say we need to pay attention to some factor, we can. I guess.”
Experts tried to broker some sort of deal with the two armies before leaving for Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Fighting rages in the south, with Ukraine escalating attacks that could be part of a wider counteroffensive.
By early Wednesday morning, Grossi said the mission had secured security assurances from both Russian and Ukrainian forces, although the danger remained. “We go to war zones. We go to occupied territories,” he said.
Both Russia, whose forces seized the plant soon after the invasion, and Ukraine, whose forces are located just miles away, have said they support the IAEA’s mandate. But they disagree on how it should be implemented. Russian authorities have ignored pleas to withdraw from the facility and create a demilitarized zone around it.
Mikhail Podlyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said in an interview on Tuesday that a key aspect of the negotiations was at issue. Among them is the route to the facility. But he said he expects the monitor to reach the power plant “either way.”