War in Ukraine, Day 177 | Putin accepts international assignment at Zaporizhia power plant

(Odessa) Vladimir Putin accepted on Friday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) send a mission to the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhya, the largest in Europe, saying he fears that the bombardments will end up causing a ” large-scale disaster.

At the same time, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, on a visit to Ukraine, asked Russia not to cut off from the Ukrainian network this power station that its army has occupied since the beginning of March, and which has become the target in recent weeks of strikes of which Moscow and Kyiv accuse each other.

Plus tôt dans la journée, l’opérateur des centrales ukrainiennes Energoatom avait dit redouter un tel scénario, affirmant que les militaires russes étaient en train de chercher des approvisionnements pour des générateurs au diesel qui seraient activés après l’arrêt des réacteurs et avaient limité l’accès du personnel aux installations.

« Bien évidemment, l’électricité de Zaporijjia est une électricité ukrainienne […] this principle must be fully respected, ”said Mr. Guterres on the sidelines of a trip to Odessa, the major Ukrainian port on the Black Sea, after having been the day before in Lviv, in western Ukraine.

An IAEA mission “as soon as possible”

“The systematic bombardment […] of the territory of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant creates the danger of a large-scale disaster which could lead to the radioactive contamination of vast territories”, for his part warned on Friday the Russian President during a telephone conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

MM. Putin and Macron in this context “raised the importance of sending a mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the nuclear power plant as soon as possible, which will be able to assess the situation on the spot”, informed the Kremlin. , emphasizing that “the Russian side has confirmed that it is ready to provide all necessary assistance to the inspectors” of the IAEA.

The Russian head of state has also accepted that these pass “through Ukraine” and not through Russia, which he previously demanded, said the French presidency.

In a statement, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that Ukraine and Russia support the IAEA’s objective of sending a mission in Zaporizhia.

This organization “is in active consultation with all the parties” to dispatch “as soon as possible” a team that Mr. Grossi “will lead himself”, according to this text broadcast in the evening.

“In this highly volatile and fragile situation, it is vitally important that no further action is taken which could further endanger […] one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world,” insisted the head of the IAEA.

“The restoration of total security” on this site “can begin after the mission has begun its work”, as for him commented in the evening the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A diplomat explained the same day to AFP that Westerners were mainly worried about maintaining the water cooling of nuclear reactors, more than the impact of a shot, because they are designed “to withstand” the “worst “.

The day before in Lviv, where he met Mr. Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Secretary General of the United Nations had estimated that “any potential damage to Zaporijjia would be suicide” and urged to “demilitarize the plant”.

On Friday, it was the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who called on Twitter for the Russians to “withdraw” from this site and to “immediately return full control to its legitimate owner, Ukraine”.

New stoppage of gas deliveries

Mr. Guterres’ visit was marked by another subject that worries the planet: Ukrainian grain exports.

Stuck after the Russian invasion, which raised the specter of a global food crisis, they resumed following an agreement between Moscow and Kyiv in July.

Mr. Guterres is expected in Istanbul on Saturday to visit the Joint Coordination Center (JCC), responsible for overseeing this international agreement to allow grain exports from Ukraine, an agreement “of which Turkey is a key element”, a-t-t -he says.

Russia, which is demanding in exchange the lifting of restrictions on its own foreign sales of agricultural products and fertilizers, affected by Western sanctions, deplores for its part “the obstacles which remain” – to use the terms that used Mr. Putin on Friday — in this area.

Allegations that France also immediately rejected, judging that there is on the part of Moscow “a desire to politically exploit this question”.

At the same time, the giant Gazprom warned that deliveries of Russian gas to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline would be interrupted from August 31 to September 2, for “maintenance” reasons, at the risk of rekindling fears of a shortage in Europe, where Russia is accused of energy blackmail.

“Significant weakening”

Regarding military operations in Ukraine, the Pentagon, which on Friday announced a new tranche of military aid amounting to $775 million to that country, noted a “total lack of progress on the battlefield” of the troops. Russians.

“We have not seen any recapture of territories” by Ukrainian forces, “but we have seen a clear weakening of Russian positions in several places,” said an official from the US Department of Defense.

In eastern Ukraine, however, Russian bombardments continued on Friday, killing at least five people and injuring ten in several localities in the Donetsk region, one of the two provinces of Donbass, an industrial basin which is the priority strategic objective of Moscow.

Kharkiv (north-east), the second largest city in Ukraine, has also been the subject of new strikes, the toll of which is 15 dead.

And more than 21,000 people were evacuated in ten days from the occupied territories, including more than 9,000 from the Zaporizhia region and more than 8,000 from the Kherson region, announced Ukrainian Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.