UN Inspection Team Heads To Ukraine Nuclear Plant Despite Shelling
Just before the 14-strong platoon from International Atomic Energy Agency( IAEA) left for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear factory,
Ukraine said Russian colors had shelled the city comingdoor.Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine UN inspectors pressed on towards a Russian- held nuclear factory in southern U
kraine Thursday despite an early shelling attack, as the ICRC advised the consequences of a strike on the installation could be" disastrous".
Just before the 14-strong platoon from International Atomic Energy Agency( IAEA) left for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear factory, Ukraine said Russian colors had shelled the city coming door. The area around the factory-- Europe's largest nuclear installation-- has suffered repeated shelling, with both sides criminating the other of responsibility, sparking global concern over the threat of an accident.
" It's high time to stop playing with fire and rather take concrete measures to cover this installation. from any military operations," ICRC principal Robert Mardini told journalists in Kyiv.
" The fewest misapprehension could spark desolation that we will lament for decades."
Ukraine's nuclear agency Energoatom said latterly that one of the six reactors at the Russian- held nuclear factory was shut down Thursday as an exigency protection measure following the shelling in the area.
" moment at 457 am( 0157 GMT), due to another mortar shelling by the Russian occupying forces at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power factory point, the exigency protection was actuated and operating power unit 5 was shut down," it said.
Mardini said it was" encouraging" that the IAEA platoon was en route to check the factory because the stakes were" immense".
" When dangerous spots come battlefields, the consequences for millions of people and the terrain can be disastrous and last numerous times," he said.
Just before leaving the southern megacity of Zaporizhzhia, IAEA principal Rafael Grossi said his platoon had been streamlined about the shelling but would press on anyway.
" We aren't stopping," he pledged, despite being apprehensive there that in crossing the frontline into Russian- held home, there was a security" slate area. where the pitfalls are significant".
" I believe we've to do with this. We've a veritably important charge to negotiate."
Fresh shelling attack
before, the mayor of Energodar, the city next to the factory, said it had come under sustained attack beforehand on Thursday.
In an 800 am( 0500 GMT) update on Telegram, Mayor Dmytro Orlov said that since dawn, Russian colors had" shelled Energodar with mortars and used automatic munitions and rockets," posting images of damaged structures and spiralling bank.
But Moscow indicted Kyiv of smuggling in over to 60 service" ravagers", saying they reached the area near the factory just after dawn and that Russian colors had taken" measures to annihilate the adversary".
Grossi on Wednesday said the IAEA would seek to establish a" endless presence" at the factory to avoid a nuclear disaster at the installation which is located on the frontline of the fighting.
"My charge is. to help a nuclear accident and save the largest nuclear power factory in Europe," he said. unequivocal safety guarantees'
Although Zaporizhzhia is typically about a two- hour drive from the factory, it wasn't incontinently long it would take the IAEA platoon to get there after crossing the frontline into Russian- held areas.
The factory has been enthralled by Russian colors since March and Ukraine has indicted Russia of planting hundreds of dogfaces and storing security there.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have indicted each other of carrying" provocations" aimed at dismembering the work of the IAEA charge.
"sorely, Russia isn't stopping its provocations precisely in the direction the charge needs to travel to reach the factory," President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Tuesday after meeting Grossi.
And in Moscow, the Russian defence ministry indicted Kyiv of" continued provocations aimed at dismembering the work of the IAEA charge" saying it had shelled the area around the factory on Tuesday hitting a structure containing" the solid radioactive waste processing complex". Counteroffensive in the south
Meanwhile, ferocious fighting raged across the near southern region of Kherson where Ukraine began a counterattack on Monday.
utmost of the region and its parochial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the launch of the irruption six months agone
With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, judges have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before downtime comes.
Meanwhile, a British medic volunteering in Ukraine failed in the fighting, the foreign ministry in London said on Thursday. It said he'd failed on August 24 but gave no farther details.