MOSCOW, August 15. /TASS/. The conditions put forward by Ukraine and a number of Western countries with regard to an IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant may prove insurmountable, Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov told the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Monday.
"I think the IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye NPP will be worked out in the near future. This is not an easy process, especially since Ukraine and its Western patrons put forward a number of preconditions, which may prove insurmountable in the end," the diplomat pointed out.
"The most important thing for Russia is to ensure the absolute safety of the international mission," Ulyanov stressed. "It is absolutely impossible to do this in conditions of continued shelling," he said. "Therefore, first of all, the Western countries should urge Kiev to stop this outrage, and the Kiev side should cooperate with the IAEA in paving the way for this visit," Ulyanov summed up.
Located in the city of Energodar, the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is controlled by Russian troops. In recent days, Ukrainian forces delivered several strikes at its territory using unmanned aerial vehicles, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launch systems. In most cases, such attacks are repelled by air defense systems but several shells hit infrastructure facilities and the vicinity of the nuclear waste storage.
The Zaporozhye NPP is Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. With a capacity of around 6,000 megawatt, it generated a fourth of Ukraine’s electricity. Since 1996, it was part of Ukraine’s Energoatom generating company. In March 2022, control over the nuclear plant came over to Russian forces. Now, the plant is operating at 70% of its capacity due to the oversupply of electricity on the liberated territories of the Zaporozhye region.