IAEA chief says attacks around Zaporizhzhia NPP have increased

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said attacks around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have increased.

Rafael Grossi made the remarks, reported by the TASS news agency, after talks with Alexei Likhachev, the chief of Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom.

“So the situation as I was saying is unprecedented. The operation of such a big, biggest in Europe nuclear power plant in the middle of an active combat zone,” Grossi said.

Grossi arrived in Moscow on Friday to discuss security at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, a facility which Russian troops took control of in the early weeks of the invasion.

The IAEA chief said joint efforts to ensure nuclear safety must continue as “the military activity around the plant site continues and in some cases it has been increasing.”

In a statement, Rosatom said Ukraine was constantly shelling the town of Energodar, the closest settlement to the plant.

But TASS quoted Grossi as saying it wasn’t possible to determine which side was responsible for the strikes.

Likhachev meanwhile emphasised the “increasing risks” for nuclear security at the Kursk and Smolensk nuclear power plants.

“Over the past months and weeks, there has been an incursion by the Ukrainian armed forces into the Kursk region and the corresponding risks for the Kursk nuclear power plant,” he said.

“There are dozens of downed drones, missiles on approach or towards the Smolensk nuclear power plant, a strike on the energy infrastructure.”

Ukrainian troops launched an incursion into the Russian region of Kursk in August last year, it says to prevent Russian forces from launching strikes into Ukraine.

Grossi visited an electrical substation in the Kyiv region on Tuesday and said that damage to key power grid facilities during the war poses a threat to nuclear safety by potentially disrupting vital cooling procedures at atomic plants.

International support for Ukraine

Meanwhile, the main international forum for drumming up military support for Ukraine will meet for the first time under the auspices of a country other than the US as uncertainty surrounds the future of Washington’s support for arming Kyiv.

The Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a consortium of around 50 partner nations, was brought together by former US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to coordinate weapons support in the months after the Russian invasion.

President Donald Trump has expressed scepticism for backing Ukraine, criticising President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and saying last month that his administration had already held “very serious” discussions with Russia about ending the conflict.

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Trump told reporters on Friday that he plans to speak with both presidents.

“I will probably be meeting with President Zelenskyy next week, and I’ll probably be talking with President Putin,” Trump said.

“I’d like to see that war end.”

The UK will convene the 26th meeting of the contact group on Wednesday at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.

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