UN inspectors have arrived at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after being delayed for several hours by reports of shelling around Europe’s biggest atomic facility that led to one of its two working reactors being shut down.
The plant’s operator, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom, said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission was on site on Thursday after Russia and Ukraine had earlier accused each other of trying to sabotage the visit.
Enerhodar, the city beside the plant, came under fire early on Thursday, its mayor said, and Russian forces reportedly shelled the pre-agreed route the inspectors were meant to take. Moscow claimed to have thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to capture the plant.
Rafael Grossi, the IAEA head, has said the inspection could take a few days and that the agency aims to establish a permanent presence at the plant, amid growing fears of a radiation disaster as Moscow and Kyiv trade blame for shelling in the vicinity.
Russian officials, however, have said the 14-strong team of inspectors, who were wearing body armour and travelled to the site in white armoured Land Cruisers with UN markings on their sides, should last just one day.
Energoatom said early on Thursday that it had activated emergency procedures and shut down the facility’s No 5 reactor “as a result of another mortar shelling by Russian … forces at the site”.
The operator said auxiliary diesel generators had been fired up at the plant’s non-operational reactor No 2 after a power supply line used for the plant’s own needs was damaged by the shelling, but it said unit No 6 “continues to work”.
Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of Enerhodar, posted pictures of damaged buildings with smoke spiralling above them on the Telegram messaging app, saying Russian troops had been “shelling since dawn” with mortars, rockets and automatic weapons.
Energoatom said the city had come under fire from the air. “A group of Russian K-52 attack helicopters worked over the city, striking residential areas,” it said, adding that one mortar attack struck “in the immediate vicinity” of the plant.
The Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, accused Moscow of trying to wreck the inspection, saying Russia was acting like a terrorist state. “It is Russia that is responsible for everything happening at the plant and in Enerhodar,” he said.
The presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that Russia was conducting “demonstrative strikes” in Enerhodar in order to blame Ukraine for them, saying this showed the extent of Moscow’s “real ‘interest’ in the inspection”.
Moscow, meanwhile accused Kyiv – without evidence – of attempting to sabotage or recapture the Zaporizhzhia plant, which Russian forces have been occupying since March, by sending in “up to 60 people on seven high-speed motor boats”.
The defence ministry said the alleged dawn attack was “blocked by units of the Russian guard” and military reinforcements. “The destruction of the sabotage group with army aviation helicopters is under way,” it claimed, adding that conditions were difficult but Russian forces “remain in full control”.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, located adjacent to Enerhodar, was occupied by Moscow’s forces in March but is still connected to the Ukrainian electricity grid and run by Energoatom employees.
THE GUARDIAN of London
