UN nuclear watchdog says Zaporizhzhia plant is Ukrainian

On Thursday, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog described the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station as Ukrainian, challenging President Vladimir Putin's assertion that the plant is now part of Russia.

The head of Ukraine's state nuclear energy company said the same day that he was taking over the plant, which was seized by Russian forces in March.

A matter that has to do with international law, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA head Rafael Grossi, spokeswoman for Kyiv, during a visit to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

We want the war to stop immediately, and of course the position of the IAEA is that this facility is a Ukrainian facility. Russia has occupied the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant ZNPP Europe's largest since its invasion of Ukraine, but Ukrainian staff has continued to operate it.

The ZNPP is located in a part of southern Ukraine that Putin has incorporated into Russia after holding what Moscow called referendums in a move condemned by Kyiv and its Western partners as an illegal land grab.

The situation at the plant is a source of international concern because of the fears that repeated shelling of the plant's territory could lead to a nuclear accident, for which Kyiv and Moscow blame each other.

Grossi, who plans to hold talks in Moscow this week, said he had held constructive talks with Zelenskyy about Russia's annexation moves.

Grossi said that we made progress in the consideration of my proposal to establish a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant at the same time.

Grossi said he would not boycott any talks about the plant if Russia forced the station's staff to sign contracts with Russia's state nuclear company, Rosatom. The station's operating reactors were put into cold shutdown in mid-September after a shelling of the station's territory damaged power lines connecting the station to Ukraine's grid. Before the war, it provided about one-fifth of Ukraine's electricity.

The plant's staff from day one have been operating under almost unbearable circumstances, the IAEA chief said.

In a video address on Thursday, Zelenskyy accused Russia of nuclear blackmail over its seizure of the plant.

He said you're not using the weapons, but you can still be blackmailing by not having the nuclear power plant working for the people - the people are not receiving the electricity.