IAEA confirms resuming contact with russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and insists on a quick visit

Resuming the remote transmission of vital data from the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant after a two-week break is an essential and positive step, but IAEA experts still need to visit the station quickly.

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said this in a statement on Sunday.

"The Director-General welcomed the development as an important and positive step for the implementation of IAEA safeguards at Ukraine's largest NPP. However, he also stressed that IAEA inspectors must still go to the facility as soon as possible to carry out essential nuclear material verification activities which cannot be done remotely," the statement said.

According to Grossi, images recorded by IAEA surveillance cameras during the cessation of data transmission are now being uploaded for review by agency inspectors to confirm that data continuity has not been lost.

"The interval of physical inventory verifications at NPPs cannot exceed a specified duration. This is particularly critical at two of the units at ZNPP.

In addition, these units have been refueled in recent months, and physical verification of the nuclear material therein is a safeguards pre-requisite before re-starting them," the IAEA said in a statement.

"If I am not able to dispatch inspectors to perform the required verification at ZNPP, implementation of safeguards in Ukraine will be compromised," Grossi said.

Reference

Communication between the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP servers for nuclear material control and the IAEA has been restored.

Earlier, it was reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency was planning a visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Still, Energoatom said that this statement was an attempt to get to the facility to legitimize the stay of the occupiers.

Since russia started a full-scale invasion, nuclear power plants have been in the zone of active hostilities. The Chornobyl NPP was liberated after 36 days of occupation. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Enerhodar is still temporarily occupied.