The IAEA mission team is on its way to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, and Russia is doing its utmost to ensure that the visit is successful and safe, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing Wednesday.
“According to our information, the agency’s team is on its way. On the Russian side, everything necessary is being done and even more. We have been working on it for three months, negotiating the trip itself way back on June 3, as well as the inspection, the team’s composition, timing, and the route, so that the mission, led by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, planned three months ago, finally could take place and complete all its goals at the power plant,” she said.
The diplomat also lamented that the UN only pays lip service to its ‘support’ for the IAEA mission, and is in no rush to admit its earlier miscalculations.
“We expect that the agency’s representatives, who are expected to arrive at the power plant shortly, will be able to examine the situation on the ground and in every detail, to assess the consequences of the inhumane Ukrainian strikes at the objects and facilities located at this site, and to make sure that the information being provided by the Russian side on an almost daily basis about the increasingly dangerous situation at the ZNPP and about the sources of these threats, – that is the Kiev regime and its forces – is totally true,” she specified.
According to Zakharova, Russia anticipates that the IAEA mission will be “objective and professional,” and that is its main task and goal.
“The Ukrainian side’s attempts to muddy the progress of the IAEA international mission, the intensified attacks on this site, and the use of increasingly heavy weapons negate all the statements uttered by the regime [of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky] that Kiev is allegedly interested in a successful visit by Rafael Grossi,’ she argued.
“We hope that the plans of Ukrainian strategists to once again obstruct the IAEA mission will not come to fruition, and that the mission will take place. A different development could be viewed as nothing but an admission of guilt by the Kiev regime,” Zakharova said.
The diplomat underscored that the presence of the IAEA mission at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant will make it possible to improve the situation and compel the Ukrainian forces “to come to their senses” and stop the shelling of the power plant and the adjacent territories for good.
“We urge all countries, especially those who have a direct influence on the Kiev regime, to continue exerting this influence, and turn up the heat on the Ukrainian authorities, forcing them to come to their senses, in order to stop this nuclear lawlessness and blackmailing, to stop terrorizing the entire world, and to stop before a catastrophe occurs, which may have very serious consequences,” Zakharova concluded.
On Tuesday, the IAEA mission departed from Vienna and arrived in Kiev, where the delegation met with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. On Wednesday, the mission’s motorcade departed from Kiev and headed to the nuclear power plant.
Source: Agencies
