UN inspectors find mines at Russian-held nuclear plant in Ukraine

Get free updates from the war in Ukraine

we will send you one myFT Daily Digest Latest Email Rounding war in ukraine News every morning.

UN nuclear watchdog inspectors have found landmines at the site of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces since the beginning of the war following a full-scale invasion last year.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the mines were planted in a buffer zone between the inner and outer perimeter barriers, which are Europe’s largest nuclear facility.

“The presence of such explosives at the site is inconsistent with IAEA safety standards and nuclear safety guidance and creates additional psychological stress on plant workers,” IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Monday night.

But he added that “the nuclear safety and security system of the site should not be affected by the detonation of these mines”.

Since last year, Ukraine has accused Russia of militarizing the plant by stationing troops there and storing weapons at the site. It is located in Energodar, a city in the southern region of Ukraine, which is occupied by Russia’s military along with the country’s Far East.

Grossi said the IAEA was aware of the previous placement of mines “outside the site perimeter and also at specific locations inside”. He said the nuclear body’s permanent inspectors at the site “have been told that this is a military decision, and is in an area controlled by the military”.

The IAEA said its experts had carried out inspections and routine “walk-downs” at the nuclear plant “without seeing any heavy military equipment”. But they said they are continuing to request access to “the roofs of (the plant’s) reactors and their turbine halls, including those of special interest units three and four”.

Western officials, military analysts and scientists have long warned about the possibility of a nuclear accident in Zaporizhia.

Safety concerns escalated last month after the Kakhovka Dam, located near the Dnieper River, blew up, flooding large swaths of land and threatening to deprive the nuclear plant of water needed to cool nuclear fuel at the site, even though power generation was halted last year.

“IAEA experts are closely monitoring the situation with regard to the availability of water for cooling the six reactors of the ZNPP and other essential nuclear safety and security operations,” the IAEA statement said.

“The available water supply has remained relatively stable. , , The site has enough water for a few months,” it said.

The concerns about the nuclear power plant come a week after Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine’s Black Sea ports in a bid to halt Ukrainian grain exports. Moscow last week backed out of a UN-brokered deal last summer that created a seafood shipment corridor to ease Russia’s Black Sea blockade of Ukrainian ports.

In a phone call with UK Prime Minister Sage Sunak on Tuesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called for additional air defense systems to protect his country’s ports, including the provincial capital Odessa, whose historic center was badly damaged by a Russian missile attack this weekend.

“Ukraine urgently needs to strengthen its air defense to protect its historical heritage and continue the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” Zelensky wrote on Twitter.

On Monday, Russia carried out drone attacks on Ukraine’s port of Reni on the Danube, which borders Romania, an EU country and member of the NATO military alliance.

Russia launched fresh “kamikaze” drone attacks early Tuesday, targeting Kiev and areas west, east and south of the capital. Officials said all aimed towards Kiev were intercepted, but some infrastructure damage was reported in other areas.

EU agriculture ministers are due to meet in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss alternative routes for Ukrainian grain to world markets after Russia threatened to attack ships in the Black Sea, a main supply route.

Spanish Agriculture Minister Luis Planas, who is chairing the meeting, said the plans include increasing the capacity to bring grain through the European Union on land and river routes.

Additional reporting by Andy Bounds and Henry Foy in Brussels.