A mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is apparently still up in the air. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s Permanent Representative to International Organizations in Vienna, told Rossiya 24 yesterday that Russia is ready to support an IAEA visit to the plant, but the Kiev regime may still throw up insurmountable obstacles. “I think the IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye NPP will be worked out in the near future. This is not an easy process, especially since Ukraine and its Western patrons put forward a number of preconditions, which may prove insurmountable in the end,” he said, reported TASS. “The most important thing for Russia is to ensure the absolute safety of the international mission,” Ulyanov stressed. “It is absolutely impossible to do this in conditions of continued shelling,” he said. “Therefore, first of all, the Western countries should urge Kiev to stop this outrage, and the Kiev side should cooperate with the IAEA in paving the way for this visit.” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres did speak by phone with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. They discussed “conditions for the safe operation of Zaporozhye NPP.”
The spokesman for Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, spoke yesterday of making arrangements with Kiev for the IAEA mission: “In close contact with the IAEA, the UN Secretariat has assessed that Ukraine has the logistics and security capacity to be able to support any IAEA mission to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant from Kiev, should both Russia and Ukraine agree,” he said.
