Safety Concerns at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant: IAEA to Send Inspectors

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said today it will send experts to Europe’s largest powerplant, the Zaporizhzhya NPP, in Southern Ukraine over safety concerns.

On the night of 3-4 March, the site of Zaporizhzhya plant fell in control of the Russian forces there. The IAEA’s Incident and Emergency Centre (IEC) immediately went to the highest alert level for the first time since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident.

Military action following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24 has compromised the safety of radiation sources; destroyed infrastructure at Ukraine’s Neutron Source and other nuclear facilities; damaged waste repositories; threatened collateral damage at nuclear power plants, and has negatively impacted Chornobyl NPP and Exclusion Zone, and Zaporizhzhya NPP, and their staff, in multiple ways.

The IAEA has led two missions to Ukraine, one to South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant and one to Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Exclusion Zone, which occurred a few weeks after the withdrawal of Russian troops from the site. At Chornobyl, the agency reestablished the flow of safeguards information; took crucial measurements of radiation in the environment, assessed Ukraine’s needs, and delivered a preliminary batch of equipment.

An IAEA-led international mission will head to ZNPP to carry out essential nuclear safety, security and safeguards work at the site. With concerns about interruptions in the supply chain of spare parts to the plant, the number of indispensable nuclear safety and security pillars that have been compromised at the plant is at least five out of the seven.

On June 6, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi wrote in a Twitter post, “We're working to send an expert mission to Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant. The biggest NPP in Europe is currently disconnected from IAEA safeguards communications systems. Ukraine requested us, we will go there.”

However, Ukraine's state nuclear company Energoatom rejected IAEA o send an expert mission to the plant.

"We consider this message from the head of the IAEA as another attempt to get to the power plant by any means in order to legitimize the presence of Russians there and essentially condone all their actions," Energoatom wrote in a post on Telegram. "The Ukrainian side did not invite Grossi to visit ZNPP and had previously denied him such a visit, emphasizing that a visit to the power plant will be possible only when our country regains control over it."

According to reports, the Russian troops shut off the Ukrainian operator Vodafone in Enerhodar city, with whom the IAEA has a data transmission contract, causing the "loss of connection" between ZNPP and the IAEA. All data collection sites and servers under the Agency's control are currently closed and sealed. The data is saved on the server and will be sent once Vodafone is activated.