The Director General of the IAEA has arrived in Ukraine to assess damages and assist in preventing a nuclear disaster.

The Director General of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, during his upcoming visit to Ukraine on February 4, will visit the Kyiv substation. This marks his 11th trip to the country since the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion. Grossi emphasizes that attacks on energy infrastructure pose a threat to all nuclear power plants in the country, and thus the agency will continue its work on-site despite the challenging circumstances.

This was stated in Grossi's announcement on social media platform X. He noted that he plans to visit a strategically important energy facility to assess the extent of the damage and to help minimize the risks of a nuclear accident.

"The vulnerability of the power grid creates an increasingly serious threat to all Ukrainian nuclear plants, not just the Zaporizhzhia NPP," the head of the IAEA stressed.

Additionally, it was reported that a few days ago the agency announced Grossi's visit to Ukraine for high-level negotiations. Despite the ongoing war, the IAEA remains on-site, doing everything possible to ensure nuclear safety under these difficult conditions. Given the unstable situation, the presence of the IAEA is critically necessary, Grossi stated.

"The increasingly fragile network poses a growing risk to all nuclear power plants, not just the Zaporizhzhia NPP," Grossi wrote.

When Grossi last visited Kyiv

Overall, as Grossi noted, this is his 11th visit to Ukraine. The IAEA chief also visited Ukraine last February. He had plans for negotiations in Kyiv and a visit to the Zaporizhzhia NPP. A week after that, the agency's director general was supposed to bring a new delegation to the station to replace the team that had been there.

He also visited the Kursk NPP in August 2024, discussing the danger of a nuclear incident. According to the IAEA director, the Kursk NPP uses reactors that lack a protective shell in their design.

Grossi expressed serious concern in an interview with Bloomberg about military actions near the Russian nuclear power plant. He emphasized the absence of additional protective structures in the two units of the Kursk NPP, which makes the plant vulnerable in the event of an accident.