The International Atomic Energy Agency team of experts announced that significant damage had been recorded at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, while Russia called on the agency to demand that the Ukrainian authorities stop bombing the nuclear plant.

The IAEA experts inspected the site yesterday, and the agency said that during their tour they discovered extensive damage, but without harming the basic systems of the station, noting that the plant's reactors are currently stable, and that they are in the process of investigating fuel levels and radioactive materials.

"They were able to confirm that, despite the intensity of the bombing, major equipment remained intact and there are no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns," the agency added, in a statement issued on Monday evening.

The attacks also hit a cooling pond, a cable for one reactor and a bridge to another reactor, according to an IAEA team on the ground that relied on information provided by plant management.

The team of experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency had begun an assessment of the situation at the station, hours after it was bombed, the Russians and the Ukrainians exchanged accusations about it.

On Monday, Russia and Ukraine accused each other of being responsible for at least 12 explosions near Ukraine's Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been under Russian control since the early days of the war.

The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency said Ukraine escaped disaster during the weekend's fighting at Europe's largest nuclear power plant, in which a barrage of shells, some of which landed near reactors, damaged a radioactive waste storage building.

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said that those who fired on the station "are taking great risks and gambling with the lives of many people."

"We were lucky that there was no nuclear accident that could have been serious. Next time we may not be so lucky," Grossi said in a statement late on Sunday.

"We are talking about meters, not kilometers," he added.


The chief executive of Russia's state-run nuclear agency, Rosatom, said he had discussed Sunday's bombing with the International Atomic Energy Agency and that there were risks of a nuclear accident.

The repeated bombing of the plant during the war raised fears of a serious catastrophe in the country, which suffered the world's worst nuclear accident, the Chernobyl plant explosion in 1986.

Zelensky: Russia must stop bombing the station

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia should stop bombing the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

In his daily speech, Zelensky thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for France's readiness to provide support in order to protect Ukraine's energy facilities.

Zelensky called on NATO countries to ensure the protection of Ukrainian nuclear reactors from any Russian sabotage, and said that it is in the interest of all countries that no dangerous events occur in the facility.

Zelensky added, in a video speech during the plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of NATO in Madrid, that the aggression threatens everyone, and the alliance should include Russia in the list of terrorist countries, as he put it.

Russia demands a responsible attitude from the agency

On the other hand, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to take a responsible position and demand that the Ukrainian authorities stop bombing the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

"We must move away from abstract condemnations and demands to stop the bombing of the Zaporizhia station without clearly and unequivocally indicating those who carried out the attacks," Zakharova said, in a statement posted on the ministry's website.

Zakharova accused Western countries of giving carte blanche to Ukraine's leadership to continue what it described as reckless attempts to cause irreparable damage at Zaporizhia.

Peace negotiations

In the same context, Mikhail Podolyak, advisor to the chief of staff of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that peace negotiations could begin when Russia leaves occupied Ukrainian lands.

Podolyak considered, in statements to Al-Jazeera, that only his country is talking about real peace negotiations, and that Russia must enter the peace talks, in order to mitigate the effects of the loss, and not to be mired in major internal problems, as he put it.

Podolyak also confirmed to Al-Jazeera that Ukraine is continuing to liberate all of its lands.

He said that if his country's army succeeded in entering Luhansk, the Russian defense lines would collapse along the fronts, as he put it.

The next target after Ukraine

On the other hand, NATO officials expressed their fear that Poland would be Russia's next target after Ukraine, and the head of the military committee in the alliance confirmed the existence of a lack of infrastructure on the eastern front.

For his part, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on member states to raise defense spending, and called for preserving the unity of the positions of the alliance members.

Stoltenberg said, in his speech before the NATO Parliamentary Assembly session in Madrid, that it was agreed during the session on the new strategic concept of NATO, and on increasing defense aid to Ukraine.

Stoltenberg added that NATO and its partners will not allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win his war against Ukraine.

Stressing that Putin's victory will make the authoritarian regimes understand that they can get what they want with tyranny, as he put it.


Polish German conversations

In parallel with the concerns of NATO officials about Poland;

A spokesman for the German Ministry of Defense said that his country is in the process of holding intensive talks with Poland to deploy the "Patriot" air defense system, after a missile accident there last week.

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht offered Poland support with Eurofighter fighters and Patriot air defense systems to secure its airspace, after a missile accident near a Polish village, just 6 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, killed two civilians.

As a result of this incident, Lambrecht said, NATO countries should improve their air defense position, explaining that this is especially true of NATO partners such as Poland, Slovakia and the Baltic states.

Washington accuses Russia of "war crimes"

On the other hand, a senior US official accused Russia of committing "systematic war crimes" wherever it deployed forces in Ukraine, expressing confidence that Russian officials will eventually be held accountable.

"We have accumulated evidence that this aggression was accompanied by systematic war crimes committed in all areas where Russian forces have deployed," said the diplomat in charge of international criminal justice affairs at the US State Department, Beth Van Schack, in a statement to reporters, referring to executions, torture and cases of inhumane treatment. and forcibly transferring persons and children.

"When you see such systematic practices, including the creation of a vast network of forcible transfers, it is very difficult to imagine that these crimes could have been committed without responsibility for them falling at the top of the chain of command," she said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US diplomacy's statements come shortly after the Ukrainian Public Prosecutor's Office announced that it had found 4 "torture sites" used by Russian forces in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, which were recaptured by Kyiv forces on November 11, accusing Moscow of committing war crimes in the region.

The official spoke of a "new Nuremberg" in reference to the trials that the Nazis underwent after the end of World War II, expressing her confidence that the investigations currently taking place in the International Criminal Court, for example, will lead to charges when the time comes.

The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into the war in Ukraine shortly after the start of the Russian war on February 24, and Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, with the support of the European judicial agency "Eurosat", formed a joint European investigation team into suspected crimes committed on Ukrainian soil.