IAEA head says unstable situation at Zaporizhzhya NPP persists

An unstable situation remains at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP), requiring the exclusion of threats to nuclear safety, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said on November 20.

"The situation at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant remains unstable. The facility continues to face challenges, not least because of the vulnerability of its limited external power supply lines," he was quoted as saying on the IAEA website.

According to Grossi, all six of the plant's reactors remain in cold shutdown mode. On this basis, the agency continues to insist that none of them should be restarted as long as threats to the nuclear and physical safety of ZNPP remain.

Earlier, on November 18, Zaporizhzhya Region Governor Yevgeny Balitsky told a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that all necessary measures are being taken to protect ZNPP, and the facility's security is at a high level. According to him, the deployment of the RCBZ regiment guarantees control over the nuclear threat.

Before that, on November 15, the head of Rosatom, Alexei Likhachev, said that the IAEA had been notified about the massive shelling of Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant is located, by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). He described the situation in the city as turbulent, noting that such attacks by Ukrainian militants there were on the rise.