UN monitors at Ukrainian nuclear plant forced to ‘shelter at the site’

U.N. watchdogs at Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine were forced to “shelter at the site” due to military activity in the area, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency chief.

“I saw clear indications of military preparations in the area when I visited the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant just over three weeks ago,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Friday. “Since then, our experts at the site have frequently reported about hearing detonations, at times suggesting intense shelling not far from the site.”

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IAEA monitors have been deployed to the Russian-occupied facility as part of Grossi’s bid to avoid a catastrophe at the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. Yet Russian officials have refused to establish a “demilitarized zone” around the power plant, which sits in one of the partially occupied regions that Russian forces seized to create a “land bridge” from mainland Russia to the annexed peninsula of Crimea.

“The perilous situation on the ground meant [Grossi] had to continue pressing for protection of the plant so that there is no attack on the facility and also that the facility is not used to launch attacks,” the IAEA bulletin stated. “He continues his efforts and negotiations with Ukraine and the Russian Federation.”

Ukrainian forces are preparing for a long-awaited counteroffensive in eastern Ukraine after months of fending off Russian attacks around Bakhmut. The Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, a U.S.-led forum of 46 countries that meets regularly at Ramstein Air Base, assembled on Friday for what might be the last meeting before that campaign begins.

“We are now helping them to liberate more land by providing more advanced systems,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday. “In addition to the advanced modern NATO standard battle tanks, allies are also delivering infantry fighting vehicles, armed personnel carriers, a lot of armor and ammunition and equipment to these. So all of this is really advanced high-end capabilities that can enable the Ukrainians to push through the Russian lines.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team has acknowledged feeling pressure to deliver an effective campaign. “We are in a decisive moment now,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Sybiha told the Financial Times. “We need to show successes.”

Putin claimed sovereignty over Zaporizhzhya and three other Ukrainian regions, even though Russia had failed even to occupy the whole of that territory. That on-paper annexation, signed in tandem with the launch of a draft to mobilize Russian conscripts, raised the political stakes of the regions for Putin even though Ukrainian forces were amid a successful counteroffensive to drive back Russian forces in two key areas.

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The status of the nuclear power plant has haunted Grossi throughout the year. Russian forces have “us[ed] the plant as a military base to fire at Ukrainians,” according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the plant suffered an unprecedented power outage for several hours in August.

“We are living on borrowed time,” Grossi told the Times of London this week. “Unless we take action to protect the plant, our luck will sooner or later run out, with potentially severe consequences for human health and the environment.”