FILE - A Russian serviceman guards in an area of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine, Sunday, May 1, 2022. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visited the sprawling plant in southern Ukraine on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022 The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted the risks they had to deploy a team in the area amidst the war. .
The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi highlighted the risks Thursday when he led a team to the sprawling plant in southern Ukraine. The IAEA is not the only international organization seeking to locate staff permanently in Ukraine amid the ongoing war. The International Commission on Missing Persons, which uses a high-tech laboratory in The Hague to assist countries attempting to identify bodies, has already sent three missions to Ukraine and set up an office there.
When a U.N. security team visited Douma, gunmen shot at them and detonated an explosive, further delaying the OPCW's fact-finding mission. In 2019, Iran alleged an IAEA inspector tested positive for suspected traces of explosive nitrates while trying to visit Iran’s underground Natanz nuclear facility. The IAEA strongly disputed Iran’s description of the incident, as did the U.S.