The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) plans to «reinforce its presence» at all nuclear power plants in Ukraine, involved like the rest of the country in the escalating conflict that began in February on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This was stated by the Director General of the agency, Rafael Grossi, at the end of a meeting in Bucharest with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dimitro Kuleba, in which he once again called for the protection of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
In addition, «we continue to work together for the urgent establishment of a security zone around the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant», according to Grossi, who has repeatedly warned of the risks of fighting near what is considered the largest atomic power plant in Europe.
Kuleba has confirmed, for his part, that among the issues discussed is the safety of personnel at these facilities, controlled by Russian forces since the beginning of March. «I have reiterated that Russia must withdraw,» insisted the head of Ukrainian diplomacy on his Twitter.
Ukraine has four power plants in total and all of them were disconnected from the power grid last week following a wave of Russian attacks. The IAEA has warned of the risk of such outages for the safety of these plants, although so far it has not detected radioactive leaks in any case.
The President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, has accused Putin of carrying out «nuclear blackmail».
