MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. The permanent presence of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is a credit to Russia’s persistence in the face of Ukrainian opposition, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the director general of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company, said on Friday.
"It should be borne in mind that it was us who insisted on the presence of an IAEA mission there. Ukraine had nothing to do with this. Moreover, they actively sought to prevent it. Thus, on the night before [IAEA Secretary General Rafael] Grossi’s first visit there, they created total chaos, bombing the entire city: residential quarters and schools. To intimidate Grossi," he said in an interview with Russia’s TV Channel One.
He noted that the IAEA experts, who have been present at the ZNPP since the fall of 2022, have never said who was shelling the plant and the city of Energodar. "When they were supposed to tell the world about this, they opted to hide behind a veil of ignorance, saying that they are not specialists in ballistics," Karchaa said.
The IAEA chief said on July 20 that the organization’s experts had conducted additional inspections at the ZNPP and found no traces of explosives, mines or heavy weapons. On June 22, ahead of Grossi’s visit to the plant, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky accused Moscow of plotting a terror attack on the ZNPP.
The IAEA’s permanent presence at the Zaporozhye NPP was established after Grossi’s first visit to the plant in early September 2022. It was agreed back then that several IAEA experts would stay at the plant to be replaced by another team approximately once a month. Eight rotations have been carried out since then.
Located in the city of Energodar, the Zaporozhye NPP is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and has six power units with an aggregate capacity of 6 GW. Russian forces took control of the facility in February 2022.