According to Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi today, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will dispatch nuclear safety and security missions to three active nuclear power plants in Ukraine as well as to the country’s Chornobyl site in the upcoming weeks, a press release from ReliefWeb states.
The government and the IAEA have agreed to send teams of Agency nuclear safety and security specialists to the South Ukraine, Khmelnytskyi, and Rivne Nuclear Power Plants in response to a request from Ukraine (NPPs). The IAEA will send its third such expert team to Chornobyl amid the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, per the agreement. The largest such plant in the nation, the Zaporizhzhya NPP, already has a staff of experts from the IAEA on-site all the time (ZNPP).
The IAEA also regularly conducts safeguards activities at all of these facilities, and it recently finished in-field verification operations at three other locations in Ukraine at the government’s request in response to Russian Federation allegations regarding activities there.
Director General Grossi stated that each mission will initially run for around a week, but added that additional missions might be added if necessary. The IAEA Safety, Security, and Safeguards Mission to Zaporizhzhya (ISAMZ) was established at the ZNPP in September under the direction of the Director General, who had earlier during the conflict led missions to the South Ukraine and Chornobyl NPPs.
In late May and early June, IAEA specialists traveled to Chornobyl on a second trip.
The ZNPP’s six reactors continue to receive the 750 kV external power line, which is still in operation, that they require for cooling and other crucial nuclear safety and security operations. Recently, there has been less shelling in the area, both at the construction site and in the nearby industrial sector near the town of Enerhodar.
While two more reactors are under hot shutdown to provide heating for residents of Enerhodar, including many plant employees and their families, the remaining four reactors at the plant are still in cold shutdown.
