Ukraine did not invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Zaporizhzhia NPP).
Energoatom, the national nuclear energy generating company, announced this in a statement on its Telegram channel, Ukrainian News Agency reports.
According to the statement, on June 6, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that the agency was preparing an expert mission to the Zaporizhzhia NPP, as the station had stopped transmitting data online to the IAEA on the status of nuclear materials.
At the same time, according to him, the invitation to visit the Zaporizhzhia NPP came from Ukraine.
"We consider this message from the head of the IAEA as another attempt to get to the Zaporizhzhia NPP by any means in order to legitimize the stay of the occupiers there and, in fact, approve all their actions. With conclusions like "the station continues to operate safely, the radiation background is normal, there are no radiation leaks, nuclear materials are kept safe. Thus, the Russian military and representatives of Rosatom are taking care of this, and there are no complaints against them." In fact, the "loss of communication" between the Zaporizhzhia NPP and the IAEA was caused by the actions of the Russian invaders, who disconnected the Ukrainian operator Vodafone in Enerhodar. And the IAEA has a contract with Vodafone for data transmission. All points of collection of this data and servers that were under the control of the agency are closed and sealed. Information is accumulated on the server and will be transmitted when Vodafone is turned on," the statement says.
The statement notes that the Ukrainian side did not invite the IAEA to visit the Zaporizhzhia NPP.
"The Ukrainian side did not invite Grossi to visit the Zaporizhzhia NPP and had previously refused him such a visit, emphasizing that a visit to the station would be possible only when control over it was returned to our country. As you know, almost a quarter of the IAEA leadership - about 100 people – are Russians. And even the deputy of Grossi himself - the head of the department of nuclear energy Mikhail Chudakov - is also a citizen of Russia. We also recall that Grossi's previous visits to Ukraine did not bring any benefit. And on the way back after visiting the South Ukrainian nuclear power plant, he went to meet with the head of Rosatom, and together they reported to the world how good everything is at the Zaporizhzhia station," the statement says.
As Ukrainian News Agency reported, on April 11, Energoatom announced that the Russian military had damaged the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the amount of UAH 18.3 billion.
On March 4, the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was captured by Russian troops.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is the largest NPP in Europe, which has 6 power units of the VVER-1000 type with a total installed electric capacity of 6 GW.
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