Aug 20,2022:Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed that a team of independent inspectors can travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant via Ukraine.
According to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office on Friday, Putin “reconsidered the demand” that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) travel through Russia to the site, after the Russian leader himself warned fighting there could bring about a “catastrophe”.
It specified Putin dropped his demand that the IAEA team travel to the site via Russia, saying it could arrive via Ukraine.
Meanwhile, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres urged Moscow’s forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant in south Ukraine not to disconnect the facility from the grid and potentially cut supplies to millions of Ukrainians.
A flare-up in fighting around the Zaporizhzhia plant – with both sides blaming each other for attacks – has raised the spectre of a disaster worse than in Chernobyl.
The Kremlin said in a statement earlier that Putin and Macron agreed officials from the UN’s nuclear watchdog should carry out inspections “as soon as possible” to “assess the real situation on the ground”.
Putin also “stressed that the systematic shelling by the Ukrainian military of the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant creates the danger of a large-scale catastrophe”, the Kremlin added.
