IAEA to inspect occupied Ukrainian nuclear plant

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will lead an inspection of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned at the weekend that the situation at the plant remains dangerous, even after two power units were reconnected to the energy grid following an outage. Several strikes were reported near the site in recent days.

The city of Energodar near the Zaporizhzhia plant was shelled late Sunday, according to Ukrainska Pravda news site, which also reported that Russia hit the city of Sarny in Ukraine’s western Rivne region with missiles, striking a military infrastructure target. Russia struck Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv again, the regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram, while in Donbas several Russian attempts to conduct assaults in the vicinity of Slovyansk, Bakhmut and Avdiivka were unsuccessful, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Facebook.

Russian shelling of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Thursday, Friday and Saturday hit buildings at the station that were just 100 meters from the reactor building, the IAEA said on Twitter, citing communication from the Ukrainian government. There was also damage to some water pipelines that have since been repaired, the IAEA said. All safety systems at the plant remain operational and radioactivity levels are normal, Ukraine told the IAEA.