IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will next week travel to Ukraine to hold high-level talks and assess developments at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), where nuclear safety and security remains precarious.
It will be the fifth time that the Director General crosses the frontline to access the ZNPP after he established a permanent IAEA presence at the site two years ago, on 1 September 2022, to monitor nuclear safety and security. It is the tenth time he is in Ukraine since the conflict began in February 2022.
"The IAEA acts promptly and decisively whenever and wherever there are threats to nuclear safety and security. Our pro-active presence is of paramount importance to help stabilize the situation. My message has been loud and clear throughout this tragic war: a nuclear accident must be avoided at all costs, and a nuclear power plant must never be attacked. The consequences could be disastrous, and no one stands to benefit from it. I remain determined to do everything in my power to protect nuclear safety and security as long as the fighting continues," he said.
At the ZNPP, the IAEA team stationed at the site has continued to hear explosions and other indications of military activities, at times near the plant itself. Due to reported drone threats in the area, the team was told to shelter indoors on 20 August and had to reschedule their planned walkdown on 26 August.
Since the Director General last went to the ZNPP site in February, it has been hit by drone strikes, experienced loss of power lines and, earlier this month, a fire caused significant damage to one of its two cooling towers.
"Two years after I launched our mission at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, it is needed more than ever. As these recent deeply concerning incidents make all too clear, the nuclear safety and security situation at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant remains extremely challenging. Our teams there and elsewhere in Ukraine are carrying out indispensable work on behalf of the wider international community in very difficult circumstances," he said.
Over the past week, the IAEA team at the ZNPP has continued to conduct regular walkdowns across the site as part of their on-going nuclear safety and security assessment.
Among other activities, they went to the turbine halls of reactor units 5 and 6 but were again not allowed to access the western parts of the buildings, as was also the case when they visited the turbine halls of units 3 and 4 in mid-August, and unit 2 earlier in the month.
The IAEA team is also continuing to closely monitor the cooling water situation at the site. Following the destruction of the downstream Kakhovka dam last year, the ZNPP dug 11 new wells in order to obtain the water needed for reactor cooling and other essential nuclear safety functions.
As the ZNPP's six reactors are all in cold shutdown, the water that these wells provide is sufficient for the site's current needs, even though one of them was temporarily out of operation earlier this month.
The team has also been informed that the ZNPP is finalizing the implementation of a revised emergency response plan and is scheduling two exercises in the coming months, which the IAEA staff will request to observe.
Widespread attacks on the country's energy infrastructure, leading to instability in the national grid, is presenting a persistent nuclear safety risk at Ukraine's other nuclear power plants (NPPs). Such attacks earlier this week led to the temporary shutdown or disconnection of some reactor units at the Rivne and South Ukraine NPPs. The off-site power situation at the Khmelnytskyy NPP and Chornobyl site was also affected. Although no complete loss of off-site power event was experienced at any of these sites, the safety of operating NPPs is heavily dependent on a stable and reliable connection to the electricity grid.
"While none of the plants lost all their access to the national electricity grid - which has happened repeatedly at the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant over the past two years - I'm increasingly concerned about the growing vulnerability of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, and the potential impact this is having on the safety of all Ukraine's operating nuclear power plants," Director General Grossi said.
The team at the Chornobyl site rotated late last week.
The IAEA has continued to deliver technical support and assistance to Ukraine to help with maintaining nuclear safety and security during the armed conflict. In the past few weeks, the Agency arranged three new deliveries. The Chornobyl site received mattresses that are intended to improve the living conditions for its staff. The Khmelnytskyy NPP received one spectrometer intended to improve its analytical capabilities, as well as an individual monitoring system with related accessories to enhance its capabilities for monitoring occupational exposures. The deliveries were supported with funding from the European Union, Japan and Norway.
