After what Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev described as the “first targeted attack on an operating nuclear power unit in human history,” the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) responded with a pro forma investigation report. IAEA Director Rafael Grossi acknowledged damage “consistent with the impact of a drone” and called the strike “a serious incident that endangered key nuclear safety principles.”
On May 30, the managers of Russia’s Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant reported to the IAEA that a Ukrainian fiber-optics-guided drone struck the machine hall of one of their six nuclear reactor units and succeeded in puncturing a hole in the building. The IAEA inspectors were brought to the area that was struck to confirm the report. Despite the evidence that the drone was Ukrainian and that a high-precision (fiber-optics-guided) one meant the targeting of the nuclear unit had been deliberate, the IAEA again refused to identify where the danger originated.
