Ukraine and Russia again accused each other on Wednesday of bombing the surroundings of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was to be inspected by a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA mission arrived in the early afternoon in the town of Zaporijjia, some 120 kilometers from the plant, noted journalists from Agence France-Presse.
“The Russian army is bombing Energodar,” said Yevguen Yevtouchenko, head of the administration of Nikopol, located opposite Energodar, on the other side of the Dnieper River, on Telegram. “The situation is dangerous with these provocations,” he added.
Dmytro Orlov, pro-kyiv mayor of Energodar, currently exiled, for his part posted on Telegram images of the town hall of the city which show its damaged facade. The building is several kilometers from the nuclear power plant.
Mr Yevtushenko claimed that the Russians, who control Energodar and the plant, bombed the city to blame it on the Ukrainian forces, and to give the IAEA mission the impression that it was kyiv that bombed the around the power plant.
Ukrainian authorities also accuse Russia of deliberately bombing the area to prevent the IAEA team from achieving this.
In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry again accused Ukrainian forces on Wednesday of “provocations” aimed at “disrupting the work of the IAEA mission”, claiming that one of the artillery bombardments Ukrainian had “hit” on Tuesday “a radioactive waste reprocessing building” of the complex.
kyiv and Moscow have been accusing each other for weeks of endangering the safety of the plant and risking a nuclear accident. Moscow denies any strike, explaining in particular that it has no interest in bombing an area that its troops control.
The director of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, left kyiv for Zaporizhia in the morning, after congratulating the press on finally being able, “after several months of effort”, to inspect the plant, including at the interior.
The plant, the largest in Europe, has been occupied by the Russian army since the beginning of March, after the invasion of Ukraine launched on February 24. kyiv has accused Moscow of deploying hundreds of troops there and stockpiling ammunition there.
“The IAEA is ready. We will report back after our mission. We are going to spend a few days there,” added the head of the UN agency, who leads a team of 13 people.
The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, received on Tuesday the IAEA experts, who arrived in kyiv on Monday, repeating on this occasion that the international community must obtain from Russia “an immediate demilitarization” of the plant and the departure of the site “from all the Russian soldiers with all their explosives, all their weapons”.
“Unfortunately, Russia does not stop its provocations and maintains by its actions” the risk of a nuclear catastrophe, he affirmed.
The Zaporizhia power plant, one of the four nuclear power plants operating in Ukraine, has six reactors with a capacity of 1000 megawatts each.
Last week, it was briefly disconnected from the power grid for the first time in its history, after power lines were damaged.