IAEA’s experts will be present on all nuclear facilities in the country, the body’s chief Rafael Grossi says
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is expanding its presence in Ukraine, with its experts to be deployed at all of the country’s nuclear power stations, the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi has announced.
The IAEA is sending more personnel to Ukraine “to help prevent a nuclear accident during the ongoing conflict” between Moscow and Kiev, Grossi wrote on Twitter on Monday.
The official, who is currently on a visit to Ukraine, said he was proud to lead the mission that would see the watchdog “deploying in all of the country’s NPPs (nuclear power plants) to provide assistance in nuclear safety and security.”
At the request of Kiev authorities, two-member teams will be stationed at the Rovno and Khmelnitsky nuclear power plants as well as at the Chernobyl site, where the world’s worst nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, the IAEA said last week.
Grossi is expected to personally launch the missions in Rovno and Chernobyl, while also holding talks with top Ukrainian officials in Kiev as part of his visit, it added.
The IAEA already has experts present at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in the region of the same name, which became a part of the Russian state in autumn, together with Kherson Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.
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