Credit…Maxar Technologies
BRUSSELS – With anxiety growing over the dangers to Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant, which is occupied by the invading Russian military, there finally appears to be some movement to get international inspectors into the facility to verify its safe operation
In a conversation late Friday, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russia had “reconsidered” its insistence that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency first travel through Russian territory to reach the Zaporizhzhia plant. according to the French presidency.
The Russian presidency was less explicitstating that “both leaders noted the importance of sending an IAEA mission to the power plant as soon as possible” and that Russia had “confirmed its readiness to provide the necessary assistance to the agency’s inspectors.”
The two presidents will discuss this mission again “in the coming days after discussions between the technical teams and before the deployment of the mission.” said the Frenchman.
The IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog and watchdog agency, has run into several hurdles in its discussions with Russia and Ukraine to enter the Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest, at least since june
Ukraine opposed the idea of inspectors entering Russian-occupied territory, an option that would appear to underscore Russian control of the plant, which provides at least a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity. The United Nations had serious security concerns to have inspectors travel to the front lines of this bitter war, with so many bombings.
As Russia and Ukraine blame each other for bringing the possibility of nuclear catastrophe to the plant through artillery warfare, part of what a senior Western official on Friday called “the information war,” pressure has increased on Moscow to relent on how the inspectors could. to arrive.
That pressure has also come from Turkey, which has tried to mediate between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, as it did in the recent agreement to free grain shipments from Ukrainian Black Sea ports amid a Russian blockade, and from the United Nations itself.
When António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, visited Ukraine last week along with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss grain shipments, the UN leader also urged swift movement to try to keep the plant from safe Zaporizhzhia.
Guterres warned Russia not to disconnect the facility from the Ukrainian grid, as Kyiv says Russia intends to do, in order to switch supplies to the Russian grid. This move could disrupt vital cooling of the reactors and cut electricity to millions of Ukrainians.
Western officials consider the main danger of a nuclear accident to come from less than a shell hitting one of the containment buildings around the six light-water nuclear reactors, which are built to withstand the impact of an aircraft line similar to September 11, that of an interruption. in electricity If that happens, and if the plant’s generators fail or are damaged, a meltdown could occur.
The main concern in that regard, a senior Western official said on Friday, would be if the plant suffered a loss of cooling due to the loss of backup electricity, if Russia pulled it off the Ukrainian grid and backup generators failed.
There is also concern that a shell could hit one of the ponds that store spent nuclear fuel, but that would have a smaller, more localized effect.
Russia has rejected Mr. Guterres to demilitarize the area around the plant.
On Friday, IAEA Director General Rafael M. Grossi “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia support the IAEA’s goal of sending a mission” to Zaporizhzhia.
The Russian ambassador to the agency has suggested that such a mission could take place in early September. But even if inspectors can verify the safety of the plant at that time, the dangers will inevitably persist as the artillery war continues.