Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi announced today that he will head an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) expert mission to Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) next week to step up efforts to help prevent the danger of a nuclear accident during the current conflict in the country.
The team of IAEA nuclear safety, security and safeguards staff will be in Chornobyl from 26 April to deliver vital equipment and conduct radiological and other assessments at the site, which was held by Russian forces for five weeks before they withdrew on 31 March.
The IAEA mission, which takes place four weeks after the Director General travelled to the South Ukraine NPP, will be followed by others to Ukrainian nuclear facilities in the coming weeks to provide technical assistance for their safe and secure operation. Please read more about next week’s mission here.
Ukraine separately informed the IAEA today that there had been no significant new developments related to nuclear safety and security over the past 24 hours, Director General Grossi said.
Regarding the country’s 15 operational reactors at four nuclear power plants, Ukraine said seven are currently connected to the grid, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya NPP, two at the Rivne NPP, two at the South Ukraine NPP, and one at the Khmelnytskyy NPP. The eight other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve. Safety systems remain operational at the four NPPs and they also continue to have off-site power available, Ukraine said.
In relation to safeguards, the IAEA said it was still not receiving remote data transmission from its monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP, but such data was being transferred to IAEA headquarters from the other NPPs in Ukraine.