Nuclear team gets down to work at site

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine－The chief of the UN's nuclear agency said his experts were staying put at Europe's biggest nuclear power plant after they on Thursday reached the site that is at the heart of concerns over a nuclear disaster amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Speaking after the initial visit, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, said on Thursday that the plant and the physical integrity of the plant have been "violated, several times", and stressed that "this is something that cannot continue to happen".

The IAEA mission is "establishing a continued presence" at the nuclear facility, Grossi added.

The plant has been controlled by Russian forces since early March, but its Ukrainian workers have continued to operate it.

Currently, there are five representatives of the mission at the plant, "and they will continue working at the plant", Ukraine's state-run nuclear energy operator Energoatom said on the Telegram messaging app. The IAEA inspectors are set to stay at the plant until Saturday, it added.

The Kremlin said on Friday it viewed the arrival of the UN inspectors as "very positive".

"In general, we are very positive about the fact that, despite all the difficulties and problems… the commission arrived and started to work," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"The main thing is that the mission is there," he said.

In recent weeks, the site of the power plant has been attacked during days of shelling. Ukraine and Russia have been trading accusations over the shelling.

Energoatom on Friday said that it would be "difficult" for the mission to make an impartial assessment of the situation at the nuclear plant, citing Russian interference.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had earlier said that Moscow was doing everything to ensure that the plant could operate safely, and for the IAEA inspectors to be able to complete their tasks.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that Ukraine was continuing to shell the power plant, raising the risks of a nuclear catastrophe in Europe, Russian news agencies reported on Friday.

Ukrainian authorities said they had made efforts to ensure that the IAEA mission proceeds.

"We did everything to ensure that IAEA would get access to the Zaporizhzhia plant and I believe that this mission may still have a role to play," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video streamed at The European House, Ambrosetti Forum meeting in northern Italy.

The International Committee of the Red Cross called for all fighting near the plant to stop, warning that little could be done to respond in the event of a potential nuclear leak.

Ukraine has launched an offensive in recent days to recapture territory in southern Ukraine, mainly in the neighboring Kherson Province.

Both sides have claimed battlefield successes in the new Ukrainian push to recapture territory in the south, although details have been scarce so far.

Agencies - Xinhua