Russian Ambassador in Vienna reported on preparations for Grossi's visit to Moscow

The issue of the arrival of the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to Moscow tentatively in early 2025 is currently being worked out. This was announced on December 27 by Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna.

"The Director General has already announced in the public space his intention to visit Kiev, ZNPP and Moscow early next year. This issue is currently being worked out," Ulyanov told RIA Novosti.

He noted that from September to November, the Russian military detected and shot down Ukrainian drones at a distance of 5-10 kilometers from the Kursk nuclear power plant (NPP), and on some days there were up to 30 such targets. Nevertheless, no damage was done to the plant itself, so the Russian Federation sees no need for Grossi's trip to the Kursk nuclear power plant.

The Russian Ambassador added that Russia is dissatisfied with the IAEA Director General's position on safety at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant (ZNPP) - this is the first time in history that a nuclear power plant has found itself in a war zone, and Grossi avoids directly pointing out that it is Ukraine's actions that pose a threat to the ZNPP. The director general avoids making such statements in the public field.

Earlier, on December 10, Grossi said that an IAEA official vehicle on its way to ZNPP was attacked by a drone. The director general of the agency condemned the strike, called for respect and specified that there were no casualties. Later, on December 12, he said that there were no distinctive fragments of the drone left at the site of the attack that could help the investigation, so the IAEA would not "point fingers" at anyone.

Prior to that, on September 6, the agency's director general met with Alexei Likhachev, head of the state corporation Rosatom, in Kaliningrad. Their talks were held in a format closed to the press. Following their results, Likhachev said that the IAEA delegation promptly traveled to the Kursk NPP and recorded the threats faced by the plant. Grossi, in turn, noted that attention to the safety of Zaporizhzhya and Kursk NPPs should not be weakened, and there is no justification for strikes on such facilities.

Before that, the IAEA Director General visited Russia on August 27. He came to Kurchatov to assess the situation at the Kursk NPP. Grossi himself expressed gratitude to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the invitation to visit the nuclear facility to assess its safety.