Nuclear safety, security and safeguards experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are continuing to work at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) this week to deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems. The experts arrived at the site on Tuesday as part of an IAEA assistance mission led by Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi who later the same day travelled to Kiev for high-level talks with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Minister of Energy, Herman Halushchenko.
Director General Grossi is returning to IAEA Headquarters in Vienna and will hold a press conference tomorrow, April 28, at 2.30 pm.
Ukraine separately informed the IAEA today that there had been no significant new developments related to nuclear safety and security in the country over the past 24 hours, Director General Grossi said.
Regarding the country’s 15 operational reactors at four nuclear power plants, Ukraine said seven are currently connected to the grid, including two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya NPP, two at the Rivne NPP, two at the South Ukraine NPP, and one at the Khmelnytskyy NPP. The eight other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve. Safety systems remain operational at the four NPPs and they also continue to have off-site power available, Ukraine said.
In relation to safeguards, the IAEA said it was working on restoring remote data transmission from its monitoring systems installed at the Chornobyl NPP. Such data was being transferred to IAEA headquarters from the other NPPs in Ukraine.