New Nuclear Fears Over Zaporizhzhia Power Plant

Talks were held in Ukraine on Tuesday over safety concerns for Europe's largest nuclear power plant, where attacks were recently reported nearby.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), spoke with officials on his 10th visit since the Russia-Ukraine war began in February 2022.

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in one of four regions—along with Donetsk, Kherson and Luhansk—in southern and eastern Ukraine that Russia partly, and illegally, annexed in September 2022, seven months after it invaded its neighbor.

Grossi posted on X that he was on his way to Zaporizhzhia to "help prevent a nuclear accident."

Grossi, who is traveling with a team of IAEA experts and officials, began a round of meetings in Kyiv with a stop at the Ministry of Energy and talks with the minister, Herman Halushchenko.

The area saw artillery shelling the previous day that damaged the facility's power access, according to its operator Energoatom, which blamed Russia for the attacks.

"Russian shelling damaged one of the two external overhead lines through which … the Zaporizhzhia NPP receives power from the Ukrainian power system," the operator said in a post on Telegram.

"In the event of damage to the second line, an emergency situation will arise," it said, adding that technicians couldn't access the site of the damage because of the "real threat of repeated shelling."

Analysts say that an explosion at the Zaporizhzhia plant would produce radiation and likely trigger panic.

However the radiation risk beyond the immediate blast area would be low compared to the scale of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

If the wind was in an easterly direction, radiation could be pushed toward Russia.

The IAEA says ongoing attacks in the Zaporizhzhia area, and damage to the country's power grid, pose threats to the power supply of Ukraine's nuclear power stations.

The watchdog said its staff at Zaporizhzhia recently had to shelter indoors because of reported drone threats in the area.

Other than Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine has three active nuclear plants.

A Russian airstrike struck a hotel overnight Monday to Tuesday in Zaporizhzhia, the regional capital, killing an 8-year-old boy and a woman, Ukraine's regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov said.

Two other people, including a 12-year-old girl now in intensive care, were wounded, Fedorov said.

On Monday, children returned to school after an overnight barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, officials said.

Some pupils found classes canceled because of damage from the attack.

Debris from intercepted missiles and drones fell in every district of Kyiv, wounding three people and damaging two kindergartens, the Interior Ministry said.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press

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