KALININGRAD, September 6. /TASS/. Nuclear power plants cannot be a target in an armed conflict, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) DIrector General Rafael Grossi said at a briefing following talks with Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev in Kaliningrad.
"I said it in Zaporozhye, I said it in Kiev, I say it here in Kaliningrad. Nuclear power plants should never be attacked, and there is nothing that justifies it under any circumstances. They are no legitimate military targets. And the IAEA is there to inform, to deter and to propose the necessary measures to avoid this," Grossi said, referring to the situation with the shelling of the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants.
"The presence of the IAEA is an asset for the international community, it is an asset for Russia, it is an asset for Ukraine, it is an asset for nuclear safety and security, and we need to protect it, we need to enlarge it as [much as] possible," the agency’s chief said.
On August 27, Grossi visited the town of Kurchatov to inspect the Kursk NPP. During the visit, he saw traces of drone attacks on the plant and the debris of the drones. Later, the IAEA chief called the situation serious and urged to prevent a nuclear accident.
On August 8, fragments of downed Ukrainian missiles were found on the territory of the Kursk NPP. The next day, Ukrainian shelling knocked out a substation, causing emergency blackouts in Kurchatov. On August 22, Ukrainian forces attempted to attack the Kursk NPP with a drone, which was intercepted and destroyed near the spent fuel storage facility.
The territory of the Zaporozhye NPP has been regularly shelled by Ukrainian units for more than two years, and Ukrainian forces have also hit residential areas of the plant's satellite town of Energodar with drones, heavy artillery and multiple rocket launchers. On August 11, a Ukrainian drone struck a cooling tower at the ZNPP, causing the facility to burn out. IAEA experts inspected the site twice. Grossi later said that the incident with the plant's cooling tower fire, drone attacks and instances of external power outages indicate an "extremely complex" situation with the plant's nuclear and physical security.