(Reuters) – A new team of monitors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog has taken up its duties at Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station at the fourth attempt, a Russian official told TASS news agency on Thursday.
Russia has accused the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of disrupting the latest monthly rotation of staff at the plant, which it said had been scheduled for Feb. 7.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, with six reactors, was occupied by Russian troops early in their invasion of Ukraine and remains near the front line.
With each side accusing the other of shelling it and risking a nuclear accident, IAEA monitors have been posted at the station since September.
“Seven people arrived – three IAEA specialists and four employees of the U.N. Security Department,” Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Russian nuclear agency Rosenergoatom, told the state-run TASS on Thursday.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on Monday that the agency’s teams had reported more explosions near the plant, which on several occasions have caused it to lose its only remaining back-up power line.
Grossi has been pressing both sides to establish a demilitarised “safe zone” around the plant.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
