TOKYO, February 20. /TASS/. Military activities, including the use of drones, continue to be reported in the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) area, delaying the rotations of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) experts, the agency’s Director General Rafael Grossi said.
"We have seen a lot of military activity lately, especially the use of UAVs, drones near the station," he pointed out at a press conference in Tokyo. "We see a lot of military activity there; I would not get into why, that is a question for military people," Grossi added.
"For example, the rotation of my experts has been delayed for a long time now because it’s very difficult to get a silence period for the teams to have a safe passage," the IAEA chief noted.
Grossi added that the agency was actively working on the issue. In particular, the IAEA head discussed it with Vladimir Zelensky on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference; besides, he also visited Moscow.
Rotations of the IAEA experts who have been present at the ZNPP since the fall of 2022 are carried out almost every month. However, rotations were delayed twice in February 2025 due to provocations staged by Kiev. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry alleged earlier that a regular rotation of IAEA experts at the ZNPP had been postponed due to Moscow’s failure to provide security guarantees. Russian Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov reiterated that Ukraine was misleading when it spoke about a lack of security guarantees from Russia for the IAEA expert rotation at the Zaporozhye nuke plant. He clarified that Kiev had tried to impose new requirements that went beyond established practices.