Rafael Grossi's appeal was urgent.

"If there is a nuclear accident now, then this time the cause will not be a tsunami brought about by Mother Nature," said the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday in Vienna.

"Rather, it will happen because we humans have failed to do what we know we could and should do." The IAEA chief spoke to the 35 ambassadors representing the 173 member states of the UN family Organization sit on the Board of Governors, including a representative of Russia.

"We have to prevent that from happening."

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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Time and time again, since Russia's war against Ukraine began, the head of the IAEA apparatus has warned that a nuclear catastrophe could happen there, even if neither warring party intends it.

In accordance with his role, he tries to avoid any impression of taking sides.

He is solely concerned with his task as the head of the Vienna-based agency, which is to ensure the safety and security of nuclear facilities.

"It was a close call"

Last Friday, a fire broke out in a building on the site of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine.

It wasn't one of the six reactor blocks operating at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, but it was nearby: an administration building that was used as a training center.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Russians of having bombed the nuclear power plant, and Russia accused Ukrainian saboteurs.

Grossi spoke of a "military projectile" that, as far as he knew, had been shot down by the Russian side.

According to military experts, images circulating on the Internet suggest that a nighttime exchange of fire using tracer ammunition took place and that it was a battlefield lighting projectile that caused the fire.

The fire was then extinguished relatively quickly by the local staff, the reactors were not affected and no radioactivity was released.

For Grossi, that doesn't change the threatening nature of the incident: "It was a close call," he said, according to the manuscript.

"Such a situation must never happen again under any circumstances." The "military operations" at nuclear facilities created an "unprecedented threat of a nuclear accident endangering the lives of people in Ukraine, but also in neighboring countries, including Russia." .

Now there is another cause for concern.

The Russian forces no longer only control the company premises, but have also taken command of the power plant itself.

Thus, technical decisions by the Ukrainian operating personnel depended on the approval of the soldiers.

"That's no way to operate a nuclear power plant safely," warned Grossi.

It also jeopardizes security that internal and external communications have been disrupted, as reported by the Ukrainian nuclear authority.

"I am very concerned about this turn of events."

Grossi wants meetings in Chernobyl

However, the IAEA is not only concerned about the nuclear power plants with the maximum risk of a nuclear catastrophe, but also about the endangerment of the numerous sites where low-level radioactive material is stored.

There, too, it is to be feared that people would be harmed if radiation was released.

In the meantime there are such “episodes” almost every day, Grossi told the media.

As a recent example, he cited the case of a neutron generator in Kharkiv, which was recently installed for a Ukrainian-American scientific project and destroyed by fighting on Sunday.

That's why Grossi is pushing for a meeting with Russian and Ukrainian officials in order to conclude an agreement to protect nuclear sites from hostilities - or rather to renew it, because in principle both states as members of the IAEA are obliged to do so anyway.

On Friday, Grossi had suggested Chernobyl as the location for this, the power plant that was damaged in 1986 and is now also under Russian control, where there is still a “hot” nuclear waste storage facility.

Russia has expressed reservations about the location and pointed out that there are enough suitable “capitals” for it.

In principle, one is ready for such a meeting at any time.

Grossi assured him that it didn't matter where, the main thing was soon.

"We don't have much time, I hope I can travel before there's a new episode." In this case, it seems to be the Ukrainian side that has reservations about such a nuclear-limited non-use of force, but safety obviously because of it wants to be guaranteed that Russia will withdraw its troops from Ukraine.

Grossi said: “I reiterate my call loud and clear that we must prevent a nuclear accident in Ukraine.

Let’s not hide behind all-or-nothing solutions.”