A delegation of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has left the Ukrainian capital for the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday in order to assess the state of the facility amid fighting between Russia and Kiev’s forces.
Before heading off, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that the inspectors intend to spend “a few days” at the plant and will report back afterwards.
On Tuesday, however, the pro-Russian local authorities said that the IAEA mission in Energodar – the city where the NPP is located, and which is in the part of Zaporozhye Region controlled by Moscow’s forces – is expected to last one day.
“The program of the visit is designed to last one day. They will have to review the plant’s operations in one day… So far it has been stated that [the purpose of the mission] is ‘to familiarize with the plant operations’. We see that as a vague concept,” Evgeny Balitsky, the head of the pro-Russian military-civilian administration, told Interfax news agency.