United Nations inspectors find mines around major nuclear plant in Ukraine

Inspectors with a United Nations nuclear monitoring agency found several mines around the Zaporizhizhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is under Russian control.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said his team saw “some mines” in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers and at other spots inside the site perimeter of the power plant.

Grossi said the mines were placed in restricted areas inaccessible to the IAEA inspectors, who are tasked with keeping the nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine safe during the war.

The agency head said “the IAEA’s initial assessment based on its own observations and the plant’s clarifications is that any detonation of these mines should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems.”

Still, Grossi added in a statement that the existence of the explosives at the site are “inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and creates additional psychological pressure on plant staff.”

“The IAEA has been aware of the previous placement of mines outside the site perimeter and also at particular places inside,” Grossi said. “Our team has raised this specific finding with the plant and they have been told that it is a military decision, and in an area controlled by military.”

Concerns about an attack on the Zaporizhizhia power plant have remained since the spring of last year, when Russian forces first took over the site.

Fighting around the plant has also been a major concern. IAEA inspectors arrived at the power plant last fall as part of an agreement reached by both Kyiv and Moscow to keep the plant safe and from causing an environmental catastrophe.

More recently, both Ukrainian and Russian officials have accused each other of plotting to blow up the plant in the past two months.

The plant supplies a large swath of power to Ukrainian citizens. While damage to the power plant, the largest in Europe, would undoubtedly have a major economic and environmental impact, experts told The Hill it would not be on the scale of Chernobyl, which contaminated millions of acres after the 1986 meltdown in Ukraine.

IAEA inspectors are still trying to get access to reactors three and four out of a total of six at the site, as teams are subject to the control of Russian forces.