The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission set off today, Wednesday, from Kyiv, heading to the Zaporozhye nuclear plant to inspect the damage to its facilities, amid fears of a radiological disaster, while the Russian accusations against Ukraine renewed the bombing of the city of Energodar - where the station is located - before the arrival of the international team.
The pro-Russian local authorities in Energodar said today that Ukrainian forces bombed the city again.
But she added that the radiation level at the Zaporozhye station is normal, and there were no casualties after the Ukrainian bombing, according to her.
The IAEA team will begin a days-long inspection mission to inspect the damage at the Zaporozhye plant, Europe's largest nuclear plant, where Russia and Ukraine blame each other for repeated bombings of the plant that last week disconnected it from the Ukrainian power grid.
According to the statements of the Director-General of the Agency, Rafael Grossi - who heads the mission himself - the agency will try to establish a permanent monitoring mission at the station in southern Ukraine, which has been controlled by Russian forces since last March.
Ukraine had demanded that the station be returned to its authority and made a demilitarized zone, after the risks of radioactive leakage increased.
As for the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said - in a press conference today - that the visit of the International Atomic Energy Agency team to Zaporozhye will reveal the reality of Ukrainian provocations, as she put it.
Regarding the Russian arrangements for the visit, the Interfax news agency quoted Yevgeny Palitsky, head of the Russian-appointed administration in the Zaporizhia region, as saying that the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency should inspect the work of the station in one day, while Western reports talk about a mission that will last several days. .
The Kremlin expressed its hope that the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Zaporozhye plant would be carried out in accordance with the framework agreed upon.
But Ukraine accused Russia on Tuesday of bombing a corridor that IAEA experts need to use to reach the station, in an attempt to push them toward another route through Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, Kyiv said.
Kherson battles
As part of the developments in the battles, the British Ministry of Defense said today, in an intelligence update, that the attacks of the Ukrainian army forced the Russian forces to retreat in southern Ukraine.
Fighting continues in and around Kherson, with power cuts to the Russian-controlled city in southern Ukraine.
Kyiv forces launch a counterattack in the hope of retaking Kherson from the Russians.
Ukraine said it had breached Russian troop lines in several places near Kherson, but Moscow says the Ukrainian attack failed.
The British Ministry of Defense stated that Russia is accelerating the reinforcement of its forces in Ukraine with volunteer battalions within the Third Corps, which left its base near Moscow on August 24.
She pointed out that the combat effectiveness of these units is not known, but said that the Third Corps likely suffers from a shortage of personnel, and that these volunteers received limited training.
economic war
In the meantime, anticipation is increasing about the developments of the economic battle between Russia and the European Union, as Russian gas flows to Europe were stopped today, Wednesday, via the "Nord Stream 1" line for maintenance work.
According to the state-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom, Russian gas supplies to Germany via Nord Stream 1 are cut off from one o'clock in the morning GMT today, August 31, to the same hour on the third of next September.
Data from the website of the pipeline operator showed that flows had already fallen to zero, at dawn on Wednesday.
European governments fear that Moscow will extend the outage in response to Western sanctions imposed on it due to the war on Ukraine, and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using energy supplies as a weapon of war, but Moscow denies this.
And if European gas supplies falter, the energy crisis that has already led to a rise in wholesale gas prices by more than 400% since August of last year will worsen, causing a painful crisis with the high cost of living for consumers, increasing costs for companies and forcing governments to spend billions to ease the cost of living. the burden.
Moscow has already reduced supplies via "Nord Stream 1" to 40% of the total capacity of the line last June, and then to 20% in July, and attributed this to maintenance problems and sanctions, which it says prevented the installation of some equipment.
Gazprom said the new shutdown is necessary to carry out maintenance on the pipeline's only remaining compressor.
Since Russia launched its so-called "special military operation" in Ukraine, it has completely cut off natural gas supplies to Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Poland, and reduced flows through other pipelines.