Proposals to protect Europe’s largest nuclear power plant are “evolving” amid increasing clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the area, the head of the United Nations’ atomic energy watchdog said during a visit to the site.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was set to assess safety and security at the plant. Fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russian forces — who seized the facility last March — has prompted warnings from Grossi and other officials about the risk of a nuclear accident. Grossi had previously called for a protection zone around the plant, but the idea was opposed by Ukrainian leaders who are demanding the return of the facility and its surroundings. Russian forces have been accused of using the plant to launch attacks on Ukrainian forces across the nearby front line.
A possible solution to the potential nuclear crisis will focus on protecting the plant itself, “rather than on territorial aspects that pose certain problems,” Grossi told reporters during the visit. “But it is a work in progress, I would say. We are working with both governments.”
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
IAEA director visits Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
The real identity of Johns Hopkins graduate Victor Muller Ferreira was Sergey Cherkasov, according to Western officials. Cherkasov was an operative of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, who allegedly spent nearly a decade building the fictitious Ferreira persona before he was detained by Dutch authorities, apparently acting on information relayed by the FBI, and later arrested in Brazil.
The details of Cherkasov’s life provide extraordinary visibility into Russian efforts to embed “illegals” — spies who operate as lone agents with no discernible link to their home service — into Western countries as part of Moscow’s intelligence apparatus.
Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
