IAEA experts 'not going anywhere' -IAEA head
STORY: An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection team braved intense shelling to reach the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, arriving after a delay of several hours in a large convoy with a heavy presence of Russian soldiers nearby.
"We are not going anywhere. The IAEA is now there, it is at the plant and it is not moving. It's going to stay there," IAEA head Rafael Grossi, who personally led the mission, told reporters after returning to Ukrainian-held territory.
He said a group of IAEA experts had stayed behind at the plant and would provide an impartial, neutral and technically sound assessment of the situation.
"I worried, I worry and I will continue to be worried about the plant until we have a situation which is more stable, which is more predictable," he said.
Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of creating a risk of a Chernobyl-like disaster by shelling near the plant, where the situation has been unraveling in recent weeks. Russia seized the plant early in the now more than six-month-old war.
Kyiv also accuses Russia of using the facility to shield its forces, and of planning to steal its output by hooking it up to the Russian power grid. Moscow denies this but has so far rejected international calls to withdraw its troops from the plant.
