Grossi: IAEA team seeks to avoid nuclear accident

Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of bombing the vicinity of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant

UN vehicles transport an inspection team of the International Energy Agency in Zaporizhia, yesterday.

a.

F.

B

Russia and Ukraine again accused each other of bombing areas around the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, which a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived at.

The inspection mission arrived shortly before noon yesterday in the city of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine, which is about 20 kilometers from the nuclear plant of the same name, and which is controlled by Russian forces, according to journalists from Agence France-Presse.

A convoy of about 20 cars, half of them bearing the "United Nations" logo, and an ambulance entered the city. "It is a mission that seeks to avoid a nuclear accident and to preserve this nuclear plant," said International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi, who headed the agency's mission. The biggest mission in Europe.

The Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of bombing the city of Energodar, near the Zaporizhia station.

The official of the Nikopol administration, located off Energodar on the opposite bank of the Dinber River, said the situation was dangerous because of this bombing.

Kyiv called on Moscow to stop bombing the road leading to the station.

"Russian forces must stop firing at the corridors used by the IAEA delegation, and not interfere with their activities at the station," Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry again accused the Ukrainian forces yesterday of "provocations aimed at disrupting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency mission," stressing that Ukrainian artillery bombardment hit a building to reprocess radioactive waste.

The day before yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received the agency's experts, stressing that the international community must obtain from Russia an immediate disarmament of the station.

He added that this includes the withdrawal of all Russian military personnel with all their explosives and weapons.

The Zaporizhia plant includes six reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, and was briefly disconnected last week from the electricity grid, for the first time in its history, due to damage to power lines.

In addition, the European Union Foreign Policy Coordinator, Josep Borrell, announced the approval of the foreign ministers of the European Union to suspend the agreement to facilitate the access of Russians to entry visas to the countries of the Union, which was reached in 2007, due to the war in Ukraine.

Borrell said during a press conference in Prague that the move was aimed at preventing easier visa-seeking by Russians who seek to enter the European Union through countries with less strict rules.

The suspension comes after weeks of pressure from European countries at the border with Russia, to prevent Russians from traveling to the European bloc on Schengen visas issued by some EU countries.

The move would make the process of issuing EU visas more complicated, expensive and bureaucratic, in addition to increasing waiting times for approval, according to European Commission rules.

Russia again halted gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream pipeline, yesterday, according to the European gas transport network INTSOG.

The Russian Gazprom Group had announced earlier this scheduled three-day stoppage, which resulted from works at a pressure station in Russia for the pipeline that directly connects gas fields in Siberia to northern Germany, after which the gas will be exported to other European countries.

European Union foreign ministers agree to suspend the visa facilitation agreement for Russians.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news