VIENNA, September 6. /TASS/. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced in a statement on Tuesday that since the spring of this year a number of events occurred at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant in violation of the nuclear safety principles.
"Since April, a considerable number of events at the ZNPP (Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant) have significantly compromised the Seven Pillars," the statement reads adding that a team of IAEA experts "closely witnessed shelling in the vicinity of the ZNPP…, the team observed damage at different locations caused by reported events with some of the damage being close to the reactor buildings."
On September 1, the IAEA mission led by the agency’s Director General Rafael Grossi entered the liberated part of the Zaporozhye Region via Ukraine-controlled territory in order to inspect the Zaporozhye nuclear facility. The mission was supposed to assess the physical damage and the plant’s safety and security systems.
Grossi told journalists that the IAEA experts conducted a primary assessment, managed to get key data and were planning to continue working at the nuclear station. Local residents whom Grossi talked to before leaving handed him a petition signed by over 20,000 people calling for an end to Ukrainian provocations against the nuclear plant.
Energodar, which is the site of the Zaporozhye plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, has been the target of shelling attacks by the Ukrainian military over the past few weeks. When carrying out 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.