Grossi described the events in Zaporizhia as “extremely worrying”. The explosions on Saturday evening and Sunday morning were “completely unacceptable”. The reactors were apparently not damaged. The IEAE will send a team of experts to assess the damage to the nuclear power plant.
The IAEA boss spoke of a dozen attacks that were “deliberate and targeted”. It was a scandal that “a nuclear power plant was considered a legitimate military target,” said Grossi. He didn’t blame either Russia or Ukraine, but stressed: “Whoever it is, stop this madness!”
Kyiv and Moscow blamed each other for the attacks. The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine “continues to provoke the threat of a man-made disaster at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant”. According to Russian information, the radioactive levels were still “normal” despite the shelling on Saturday and Sunday.
Ukrainian forces fired more than 20 “large-caliber projectiles” at the power plant site on Saturday and Sunday, Moscow said. These were aimed at the roof of a “special building” near reactor blocks 4 and 5. The building houses, among other things, a nuclear fuel storage facility, said a representative of the Russian nuclear power producer Rosenergoatom, according to the Russian state news agency Tass.
The Ukrainian nuclear agency Energoatom, on the other hand, said Russia had shelled the Zaporizhia power plant. After Russian attacks on Sunday morning, at least twelve attacks on the power plant site were registered, Energoatom said. Russia is endangering “once again… the whole world”.
For months Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of being responsible for attacks around and on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is not far from the front in the Zaporizhia region, which Russia has declared annexed. In October, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree placing the nuclear power plant under Russian administration.
