The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which already has a presence at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant occupied by the Russian army, is to send experts to other Ukrainian sites in the next few days and eventually triple their number.
The UN body “will soon be permanently deployed to all the power plants in Ukraine, including Chernobyl,” according to a statement issued on Friday evening.
Its director-general, Rafael Grossi, will go to the site next week to launch the new system.
While occasional missions have taken place since the beginning of the war, this decision “marks a major expansion,” the IAEA said.
Until now, only the highly sensitive site of Zaporizhzhia, close to the front line and regularly targeted by bombing, has hosted staff from the international organisation – up to four people have been stationed there since September.
IAEA is to station 'about 11 or 12 experts' at nuclear plants in Ukraine
From now on, “about 11 to 12 experts will be present at all times” in Ukraine to “monitor the situation, examine equipment” or “provide technical assistance,” the agency said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal had announced such missions to “secure” the country’s five power plants, in December, after a meeting with Grossi, but the timetable and size had not been specified.
In addition to Zaporizhzhia, inspectors will be deployed to Rivne, Khmelnytskii, Pivdennooukraïnsk and Chernobyl, the plant where the worst civil nuclear accident in history took place in 1986.
The IAEA chief will also meet with senior Ukrainian officials during his visit, as part of his efforts to establish a “protection zone” around the Zaporizhzhia plant.
He has been holding consultations with Kyiv and Moscow for several months now, but without success so far.
