UN inspectors go to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that the mission “will be the most difficult in the history of the International Atomic Energy Agency” given the active fighting on the ground.

Last week, the fighting in the area temporarily disconnected The station from the Ukrainian power grid for the first time in its 40-year history, with the president Volodymyr Zelensky Saying that the accident left the world hardly avoiding a radiological disaster.

On Friday, the Ukrainian authorities began distribution iodine tablets For residents near the plant in case of any future radiation leak, bringing back painful memories in a country that still haunts it. 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl.

Ukraine’s allies urged Russia to hand over control, and the United Nations warned that any attack on the station would be “suicidal”.

Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for the bombing of the factory for weeks. NBC News was unable to verify either side’s claims.

The news of the IAEA mission came as Ukraine appeared to be launching its long-awaited mission counterattack Against the areas occupied by Russia in the south, including the Kherson region.

“Today we started offensive operations in different directions,” Southern Military Command spokeswoman Natalia Homenyuk Tell Ukrainian public radio Suspilne.

Military observers had been expecting a ground-based counterattack in the south for months, with Kyiv apparently targeting Russian arms depots and other military installations behind its defensive lines there and In the neighboring Crimeaannexed by Moscow in 2014.

Homniuk later addressed reporters, expressing caution and calling for patience.

“We are not announcing the beginning of the attack or the end of the attack,” she said in a caption by phone. But under the pressure of our actions, the enemy began to retreat. It is currently recording the enemy’s withdrawal from some of its positions.”

NBC News has not verified this claim.

The Zaporizhzhya plant has been under Russian control since Kremlin forces seized land in the south in March, but Ukrainian engineers continue to operate it.

Ukraine’s state nuclear agency, Energoatom, He said Earlier on Monday, Russia said it had “increased pressure” on the station’s staff ahead of the arrival of the IAEA mission to “prevent them from revealing evidence of the crimes of the occupiers at the station and using it as a military base”. No evidence was provided for the allegation.

in that Last updated On Sunday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said that despite reports of renewed bombing in recent days, all safety systems were still working and there was no increase in radiation levels.

United State Russia accused Failing to acknowledge the plant’s “grave radiological danger”, blocking the final draft of a major UN nuclear non-proliferation treaty review on the issue.

The Group of Seven, which includes the United States, welcomed the news of the mission to Zaporizhia, in a statement released Monday, the agency said that IAEA staff should be able to access all nuclear facilities in Ukraine “in a timely, safe and unimpeded manner.”

Anastasia Parafenyuk Contributed.