MOSCOW, December 6. /TASS/. Putting the Zaporozhye NPP under the control of the IAEA will be impossible, because that organization does not have the authority to manage nuclear power plants, Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the CEO of the Rosenergoatom concern, said on the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Tuesday.

"The idea of putting the power plant under the control of the IAEA and, in fact, under the control of Ukraine, raises a legitimate question: how can the power plant be placed under the control of the IAEA? Such a procedure is not described anywhere: either in the IAEA Charter or any other international regulatory documents. This is impossible in principle," Karchaa said, while commenting on statements by Ukrainian politicians that the ZNPP should be placed under the control of Kiev and the IAEA.

Karchaa explained that the IAEA did not have the mandate to manage nuclear power plants.

"The IAEA has many mandates, it is an organization in charge of nuclear safety, and not of operating nuclear power plants. There are no such provisions," he pointed out.

Situation around ZNPP

On December 2, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi told the international conference Mediterranean Dialogues in Rome that an agreement on establishing a security zone around the ZNPP could be reached soon. Earlier, the head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, said that the safety model discussed with Grossi required a stop to any shelling of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.

On November 17, the IAEA adopted a new resolution on the ZNPP to call on Russia to immediately relinquish its "baseless claims" of ownership of this nuclear power plant. Russia and China voted against the resolution, while India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia abstained. The Russian Permanent Mission in Vienna said the IAEA’s resolution had gone beyond the agency's mandate.The 6-gigawatt Zaporozhye NPP - the largest nuclear power plant in Europe - is located in the city of Energodar. In March 2022, the facility was put under the control of Russian forces. Since then, the Ukrainian army has systematically shelled both the residential areas of Energodar and the territory of the nuclear plant, using drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.