Russia and Ukraine traded accusations after the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report it was “gravely concerned” about the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant amid ongoing fighting around the site. Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he trusted the report and accused Ukraine of bombing the plant. “[The IAEA] they are under pressure and we cannot directly say that the shelling is coming from Ukrainian territory,” he said on Wednesday. “We control the station, our soldiers are there. What, we’re shooting at our own [men] or what? This is rubbish, it is impossible to say otherwise.” The Russian president continued to deny that there were military personnel or equipment inside the station. “I saw that the report says that the IAEA considers it necessary to remove military equipment from the site of the power plant. But there is no military equipment on the ground of the power plant, the IAEA staff had to see it,” Putin said. “And they can still see it now because two employees stayed there.” “Our military equipment… is not stationed. It is quite far outside the perimeter of the station,” he added. In its report, the IAEA said that there was indeed military equipment inside the power plant, even publishing a photo of a Russian military truck. “The team observed the presence of Russian military personnel, vehicles and equipment at various points in the ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant]including several military trucks on the ground floor of the Unit 1 and Unit 2 turbine rooms and military vehicles parked under the overpass connecting the reactor units,” the report said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday backed the IAEA’s call for demilitarization of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and surrounding support infrastructure, calling on the agency to “force Russia to demilitarize NPP territory and return full control to Ukraine.” Ukraine has also consistently blamed Russia for the bombing of the power plant and has also accused Moscow of using the facility as a shield from which to fire at Kiev positions across the Dnieper River. The IAEA has called for the area around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant to be demilitarized, but, so far, both Ukraine and Russia appear unwilling to engage in the kind of coordination needed to achieve this. The IAEA team sent to the plant included six experts who carried out what the agency describes as “core nuclear safety, security and safeguards work”. Two of the experts stayed behind to continue this work and enable the IAEA to “observe the situation there and provide independent assessments.” CNN has reached out to the IAEA for additional details about the work they will undertake at the station, but has not yet heard back.
