KYIV: Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday accused each other of blocking the rotation of staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Moscow’s troops seized the facility — Europe’s largest nuclear power station — in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine, and both sides have repeatedly accused the other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster by attacking the site.
Staff from the UN nuclear watchdog have been based there since September 2022 to monitor nuclear safety.
Fighting meant the IAEA staff could not be swapped out as part of a planned rotation on Wednesday — the second such delay in a week — both Kyiv and Moscow said, trading blame for the incident.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said in a statement: “Russia has once again deliberately disrupted the rotation of IAEA experts at the Zaporizhzhia plant.”
Inspectors spend around five weeks at the plant in stints before being swapped out in a complex procedure that involves traveling across the front line under supervision from the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
Tykhy accused Russia’s army of opening fire near where the planned rotation was taking place, saying Moscow’s goal was to force the IAEA team to travel through Russian-controlled territory and “violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Ukrainian army blocked the IAEA team from traveling to an agreed meeting point and were attacking the area with drones — at which point the Russian military withdrew its support team and returned to the station.
“On their return, the convoy carrying Russian military personnel and IAEA experts... came under attack by drone and mortar strikes,” Zakharova said in a statement.
The IAEA staff members were supposed to leave the station on February 5 in a rotation that was also delayed.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi was in both Ukraine and Russia last week, where he discussed the issue of rotations with officials from both countries.
In a statement, Grossi expressed his “deep regret” over the cancelation of the “carefully prepared and agreed rotation” due to excessive danger, calling the situation “completely unacceptable.”
“As a result of these extremely concerning events, I am in active consultation with both sides to guarantee the safety of our teams,” he said.
Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
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Russia, Ukraine trade blame for IAEA disruptions at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Ukraine’s Zelensky: We have backed US peace proposals to get a deal done
- “The tactic we chose is for the Americans not to think that we want to continue the war,” Zelensky told The Atlantic
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had sought to back US peace proposals to end the war with Russia as President Donald Trump seeks to resolve the conflict before November mid-term elections.
Zelensky, in an interview published by The Atlantic on Thursday, said Kyiv was willing to hold both a presidential election and a referendum on a deal, but would not settle for an accord that was detrimental to Ukraine’s interests.
“The tactic we chose is for the Americans not to think that we want to continue the war,” Zelensky told the US-based publication. “That’s why we started supporting their proposals in any format that speeds things along.”
He said Ukraine was “not afraid of anything. Are we ready for elections? We’re ready. Are we ready for a referendum? We’re ready.”
Zelensky has sought to build good relations with Washington since an Oval Office meeting in February 2025 descended into a shouting match with Trump and US Vice President JD Vance.
But he said he had rejected a proposal, reported this week by the Financial Times, to announce the votes on February 24, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion. A ceasefire and proposed US security guarantees against a future invasion had not yet been settled, he said.
“No one is clinging to power,” The Atlantic quoted him as saying. “I am ready for elections. But for that we need security, guarantees of security, a ceasefire.”
And he added: “I don’t think we should put a bad deal up for a referendum.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Zelensky is not a legitimate negotiating partner because he has not faced election since coming to power in 2019.
Zelensky has said in recent weeks that a document on security guarantees for Ukraine is all but ready to be signed.
But, in his remarks, he acknowledged that details remained unresolved, including whether the US would be willing to shoot down incoming missiles over Ukraine if Russia were to violate the peace.
“This hasn’t been fixed yet,” Zelensky said. “We have raised it, and we will continue to raise these questions...We need all of this to be written out.”
