The UN nuclear chief warned that Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine 'is completely out of control' and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.
The UN nuclear chief warned that Europe's largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine "is completely out of control" and issued an urgent plea to Russia and Ukraine to quickly allow experts to visit the sprawling complex to stabilize the situation and avoid a nuclear accident.
There is "a paradoxical situation" in which the plant is controlled by Russia, but its Ukrainian staff continues to run its nuclear operations, leading to inevitable moments of friction and alleged violence, he said. While the IAEA has some contacts with staff, they are "faulty" and "patchy," he said.
Russian forces occupied the heavily contaminated site soon after the invasion but handed control back to the Ukrainians at the end of March. Grossi visited Chornobyl on April 27 and tweeted that the level of safety was "like a `red light' blinking." But he said Tuesday that the IAEA set up "an assistance mission" at Chernobyl at that time "that has been very, very successful so far.
"The IAEA, by its presence, will be a deterrent to any act of violence against this nuclear power plant," Grossi said. "So I'm pleading as an international civil servant, as the head of an international organization, I'm pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the NPT review conference on Monday that Iran "has either been unwilling or unable" to accept a deal to return to the 2015 agreement aimed at reining in its nuclear program.