UN nuclear boss pushes for breakthrough to safeguard Zaporizhzhia plant

Record ID: 1717518

  • Title: UN nuclear boss pushes for breakthrough to safeguard Zaporizhzhia plant
  • Date: 28th March 2023
  • Summary: DNIPRO, UKRAINE (MARCH 28, 2023) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF RAFAEL GROSSI, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA) DURING AN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) RAFAEL GROSSI, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), SAYING: "We are making some adjustments on the proposals that we are putting on the table. I am confident that it might be possible to establish some form of protection, perhaps not emphasising so much the idea of a zone, but on the protection itself: what people should do, or shouldn't do to protect, instead of having a territorial concept.” WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) RAFAEL GROSSI, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), SAYING: "I am not giving up in any way. I think on the contrary, we need to multiply our efforts, we need to continue." WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) RAFAEL GROSSI, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), SAYING: “If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don't have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks.” WHITE FLASH (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) RAFAEL GROSSI, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), SAYING: “We had an agreed route. All of a sudden that route was not agreed upon anymore, one side was proposing a route, the other side was proposing another route, It took an awful lot of time to come to an agreement. Finally, we did it.”
  • Embargoed: 11th April 2023 14:28
  • Keywords: IAEA Nuclear safety Russian invasion War in Ukraine
  • Location: DNIPRO, UKRAINE
  • City: DNIPRO, UKRAINE
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
  • Reuters ID: LVA001087728032023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Tuesday (March 28) that his effort to broker a deal to protect Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was still alive and that he was adjusting the proposals to try for a breakthrough.
    Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, spoke to Reuters in an interview a day before he is expected to travel to Europe's largest nuclear plant in the Russian-occupied southeast Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
    Grossi has pushed for a safety zone at the facility for a year to prevent a possible nuclear disaster, as Moscow and Kyiv have repeatedly accused each other of shelling the plant since Russia invaded in February last year.
    "We are making some adjustments on the proposals that we are putting on the table," Grossi told Reuters in an interview in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
    "I am confident that it might be possible to establish some form of protection, perhaps not emphasising so much the idea of a zone, but on the protection itself: what people should do, or shouldn't do to protect (the facility), instead of having a territorial concept," he said.
    The contours of the proposed deal have not been made public.
    Diplomats say Grossi's latest proposal no longer includes a defined radius around the plant for the zone.
    Ukraine's position is that it does not want a deal that will effectively recognise or allow a Russian military presence there. Other elements of Grossi's plan are no firing at the plant, no firing from the plant, and the removal of heavy weapons.
    Grossi said: "I am not giving up in any way. I think on the contrary, we need to multiply our efforts, we need to continue."
    He noted increasing military activity in the region. Ukrainian forces are expected to launch a counteroffensive in the coming weeks or months to recapture swathes of territory occupied by Russia in the east and south.
    Grossi who met Zelenskiy on Monday (March 27) described the situation at the facility as "very dangerous" and very unstable.
    The plant had lost its external power supply six times during Russia's invasion, forcing the facility to use emergency diesel generators to cool its reactors.
    He singled out the water level in a nearby reservoir as another potential danger as well. Water supplied by the reservoir is used to cool the reactor.
    "If the reservoir level goes down beyond a certain level, then you don't have water to cool down the reactors, and we have seen especially in January that the levels of the water were going down significantly. They recovered somehow in the past few weeks," he said.
    The IAEA has had its own monitors stationed at the Zaporizhzia nuclear power plant since last year. He blamed a recent delay in their rotation on a row between Russia and Ukraine over the route they were supposed to take.
    "We had an agreed route. All of a sudden that route was not agreed upon anymore... It took an awful lot of time to come to an agreement," he said.
    (Production: Mykhailo Moskalenko, Oleksii Orlov, Andrii Pryimachenko)
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