Russian occupiers continue the shameful practice of creating obstacles in the work of experts of the IAEA permanent monitoring mission at Zaporizhzhya NPP and do not provide the necessary access to important areas of the plant's industrial site. This is stated in the next statement by IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi on January 3, 2024.

“However, the IAEA experts remain unable to gain access to all parts of the site, and for the past two weeks they have not been allowed to access the reactor halls of units 1, 2 and 6. This is the first time that IAEA experts have not been granted access to a reactor hall of a unit that was in cold shutdown. This is where the reactor core and spent fuel are located. The team will continue to request this access”, Director General Grossi said.

Also, IAEA experts have not been allowed full access to the turbine halls of power units No. 3, 4 and 6.

Such actions of the Russian occupiers may indicate that they are trying to hide the real situation and military equipment, weapons, and explosives at Zaporizhzhya NPP. In addition, a significant period passes between IAEA requests for access to certain systems and equipment and actual access allows invaders to manipulate to mislead IAEA representatives.

The occupation administration also did not provide a maintenance schedule for ZNPP for 2024, the request for which was made by experts of the IAEA permanent monitoring mission. This indicates that the occupiers are not interested in ensuring nuclear and radiation safety at ZNPP, since they do not plan to carry out routine technical maintenance and repair of equipment of safety systems and systems important for safety.

As repeatedly noted in the SNRIU, the lack of proper maintenance and repairs led to the degradation of nuclear and radiation safety at ZNPP. In particular, this has already manifested itself in two of last year's operational events with the leakage of potentially radioactive water from the primary to the secondary circuit.

As of today, Zaporizhzhya NPP consumes electricity for its own needs from the Ukrainian unified energy system, with which it is connected by a 750 kilovolt (kV) line and 330 kV back-up line.