IAEA chief discusses Ukraine, Russia nuclear plants with Zelenskiy, says situation fragile
UN nuclear agency head to visit Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
He visited Russia's Kursk nuclear plant last week
IAEA wants to prevent wartime nuclear accident
Updates with new Grossi comments
By Anastasiia Malenko and Max Hunder
KYIV, Sept 3 (Reuters) -U.N. nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi, who is due to visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeast Ukraine on Wednesay, said the situation there was "very fragile" and the risk of a disaster remained.
Rossi was speaking at a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday after meeting withPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukrainian nuclear and energy officials. They also discussed the state of affairs atthe Kursk nuclear plant in Russia, which Ukrainian troops are close to.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe's largest nuclear facility, fell to Russian troops soon after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and is not operating now.
Both sides have frequently accused each other of shelling it.Moscow and Kyiv both deny the accusations.
Grossi, who is director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said: "I have very often characterised (Zaporizhzhia) as very fragile. Some days we have some stability, and then there is an end, an issue, a drone impact, or like today we had one of the two existing power lines down, which means that the station is again on the verge of being on a blackout."
"Blackout — no power. No power — no cooling. No cooling — maybe you have a disaster," he said.
Russian news agencies reported on Monday that a high-voltage power supply line at the plant had automatically disconnected.
Ukraine said Russian attacks had damaged one of the two external overhead lines connecting the plant to the Ukrainian power grid. Russia has not commented on that charge.
Zelenskiy, visiting the city of Zaporizhzhia with Dutch PrimeMinister Dick Schoof on Monday, said that at this stage of the war, it was not possible for Ukraine to take back control of the plant.
Grossi, who visited Russia's Kursk plant last week, also said at Tuesday's briefing that the situations there and at Zaporizhzhia were different.
But he added: "I think it is always a risk when there is a possibility of an attack on a nuclear power plant."
Russia says the Kursk plant has been repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian forces that are just 40 km (25 miles) away since they carved out a slice of Russian territory in a cross-border incursion launched on Aug. 6.
Grossi said after visiting the Kursk plant that it was extremely fragile because it had no protective dome and that the "danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here".
Ukraine's foreign ministry last Thursday denounced what it said were Russian efforts to accuse Ukraine of provocations that threatened nuclear safety, saying this was a "disinformation campaign to distract attention from its own criminal acts at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant".
Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv and by Lidia Kelly in Melbournne, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Angus MacSwan
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