Members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have discovered mines at the site of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (NPP), agency head Rafael Grossi said on Monday – following earlier allegations from Kiev that there were mines.
“IAEA experts observed directional antipersonnel mines on the periphery of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant site in Ukraine,” Grossi said in a statement, adding that the mines were located during a walk on Sunday.
Zaporizhzhia NPP is currently occupied by Russian forces. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly called on world leaders to put pressure on Russia to hand over the station to the IAEA and for Russian fighter jets to leave the station’s territory.
Grossi added that the IAEA team was aware of the previous laying of mines outside and inside the plant and was informed that it was “a military decision and in an area controlled by the military”.
“The IAEA team saw some mines located in a buffer zone between the site’s inner and outer perimeter barriers,” Grossi said, noting that the mines were “situated in a restricted area that plant operating personnel cannot access and had their backs to the site.”
Grossi called the presence of explosives at the site “incompatibility with IAEA safety standards and nuclear safety guidelines”.
Source: CNN Brasil
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