ENERGODAR, September 1. /TASS/. Between eight and 12 people from the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will remain at the Zaporozhye nucler power plant in Ukraine, Alexander Volga, the head of Energodar’s military-civilian administration, said on Thursday.
"As of now and, according to the information that I have been provided with, between eight and twelve people [from the IAEA mission] will remain staying here," Volga said speaking to journalists.
Earlier in the day, the IAEA team arrived at the Zaporozhye NPP located in the city of Energodar. The delegation is on a fact-finding mission to estimate the material damage to the plant and to evaluate the operational capabilities of the plant’s safety and security systems.
The experts are supposed to assess the staff’s working conditions and take urgent measures to provide safety and security guarantees for the facility.
Energodar, which is the site of the Zaporozhye NPP, Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, has been the target of shelling attacks by the Ukrainian military over the past few weeks. For its strikes against the nuclear power plant, the Kiev regime is using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems. In most cases, the attacks are repelled by Russian air defense systems. However, some rockets hit the NPP’s infrastructural facilities, including nuclear waste storage sites.
On the morning of September 1, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian troops attempted to disembark at 07:00 at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, near the Vodyanoe village. The landing was thwarted by Russia’s Armed Forces, when they sunk two self-propelled barges carrying saboteurs that departed from Nikopol.
Also, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, at 06:20 Moscow time, the Kiev regime carried out a landing by two Ukrainian sabotage groups with a total number of up to 60 people on seven speedboats on the coast of the Kakhovka reservoir, three kilometers north-east of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. The Defense Ministry reported that the Ukrainian servicemen were blocked by units of the Russian National Guard and the Russian Armed Forces.