UN Monitors Head to Zaporozhye Nuclear Plant

By Staff, Agencies

A team of international nuclear inspectors was heading Wednesday to the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant caught in the middle of the fighting in southern Ukraine amid international concern of a potential accident or radiation leak.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], said he hoped to establish a permanent mission in Ukraine to monitor Europe's largest nuclear plant.

"These operations are very complex operations. We are going to a war zone. We are going to occupied territory. And this requires explicit guarantees not only from the Russians, but also from the Republic of Ukraine," Grossi said in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev before the monitoring the mission's departure.

"We have been able to secure that. ... So now we are moving."

Zaporozhye is a vital source of energy for Ukraine and remains connected to its power grid.

Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of shelling the wider region around the nuclear power plant and the risks are so severe that officials have begun distributing anti-radiation iodine tablets to nearby residents.