International Atomic Energy Agency officials have carried out additional inspections at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant over the past week without finding any heavy military equipment, explosives or mines, but they are still awaiting access to the rooftops of the reactor buildings, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said on July 20.
During visits to portions of the besieged plant earlier in July, IAEA nuclear security teams checked each reactor’s main control room, reactor hall, spent fuel pool, emergency control room, rooms where electrical cabinets of the safety systems are located and the turbine hall.
On Sunday, an IAEA team observed directional anti-personnel mines on the periphery of the in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers. The team reported that the weapons were situated in a restricted area that plant personnel cannot access and were facing away from the site. The team did not observe any within the inner site perimeter during the walkdown, the agency said in a statement.
“As I have reported earlier, the IAEA has been aware of the previous placement of mines outside the site perimeter and also at particular places inside. Our team has raised this specific finding with the plant and they have been told that it is a military decision, and in an area controlled by military,” Grossi said.
While the IAEA experts saw transport trucks in the turbine halls of some reactor units there was no visible indication of explosives or mines, the IAEA said in a statement. The team has requested but not yet recieved access to the roofs of the reactors and their turbine halls, which the agency said are of particular interest.
The five basic principles that Grossi established in May at the United Nations Security Council state that there should be no attack from or against the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power facility. It should not be used as storage or a base for heavy weapons like multiple rocket launchers, artillery systems and munitions, and tanks, Grossi said.
The IAEA team did not report hearing any explosions over the past week, in contrast to the preceding week when it was almost a daily occurrence, underlining the volatile security situation in the region located on the frontline of the conflict, the agency said.
The IAEA experts are also closely monitoring the availability of water for cooling the plant’s six reactors and other essential nuclear safety and security functions. Since the destruction of the Khakovka Dam about six weeks ago, the plant has relied on water from the site’s cooling pond, a separate discharge channel and underground water from the drainage system for its needs.
