IAEA reports blasts near Zaporizhzhia plant, Russia rejects claim

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported powerful explosions near Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant and renewed calls for a security zone around it.

A Russian official quickly dismissed the comments by Rafael Grossi, head of the IAEA, saying the United Nations’ body had suggested that Moscow could not uphold nuclear safety at the plant.

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 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report about powerful blasts in the vicinity of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) are a provocation aimed at convincing the public of Russia’s inability to ensure nuclear security, a Russian nuclear official said on Thursday.

"There is no other way to describe it but as a provocation," said Renat Karchaa, an adviser to the head of Russia’s Rosenergoatom nuclear power engineering company. "Before being published, such information should be checked and verified."

"On the one hand, they want to show they are doing something useful, on the other - to sow the thought of Russia’s inability to ensure nuclear safety in the collective mind of the West," Karchaa added.

According to him, "an artillery engagement was taking place during that period, but it was far away." "There were no blasts on the nuclear station’s territory or near it,"the official pointed out.