IAEA says shelling reported near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

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(Reuters) – The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Tuesday its team at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine heard shelling close to the site and observed black smoke rising from three nearby locations.

The team from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog was informed that multiple artillery shells struck an area outside the plant’s perimeter, around 400 m (437 yards) from its off-site diesel fuel storage facility, the IAEA said in a statement.

“While there were no reports of casualties or equipment damage, the incident once again underlined the constant dangers to nuclear safety and security,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said.

There were no statements on the incident from either Russian or Ukrainian officials.

Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, in the first weeks after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Each side routinely accuses the other of undertaking actions that endanger nuclear safety at the plant.

Incidents of shelling occur frequently. The plant’s reactors are shut down, but the nuclear fuel inside them still needs to be cooled.

Last week, a Moscow-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian drone detonated in the air by the plant. Staff had earlier reported two attacks over the previous week on a training centre near the plant’s reactors.

The IAEA, which urges both sides to avoid actions posing a threat to the facility, has monitors stationed permanently at the Zaporizhzhia plant and at Ukraine’s three other nuclear plants.

(Reporting by Surbhi Misra in Bengaluru; Editing by Chris Reese, Ron Popeski and Jamie Freed)