There's no evidence that Russia has rigged Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya plant with explosives, nuclear watchdog says

• The IAEA said Friday there's no sign Russia plans to destroy the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.
• Inspectors "have not seen any mines or explosives," according to the head of the nuclear watchdog.
• However, the IAEA said its experts have not been provided full access to the facility.

The United Nations' nuclear watchdog said Friday that it has seen no evidence that Russia intends to blow up the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, a finding that comes after the head of Ukraine's military intelligence walked back an earlier warning of impending disaster.

In a status report on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which Russian forces occupied soon after last year's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said inspectors were recently provided "some additional access" to the facility after Ukraine claimed it had been rigged with bombs.

"So far, they have not seen any mines or explosives," Grossi said, adding that Thursday's round of inspections included a visit to a cooling pond that Ukrainian officials had said might be rigged. "But they still need more access, including to the rooftops of reactor units 3 and 4 and parts of the turbine halls. I remain hopeful that this access will be granted soon."

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed that his intelligence services found evidence that Russia had "placed objects resembling explosives" on those rooftops, possibly "to simulate an attack on the plant."

The head of Ukraine's state-run nuclear energy company likewise said satellite imagery indicated explosives may have been placed on the rooftops, while adding that the evidence was inconclusive and that the objects may have been something else, such as machine guns.

Ukrainian officials have for months asserted that Russia is planning a potential "false flag" attack at the nuclear plant.

In June, Kyrlo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence service, claimed in an interview with the New Statesman that Russia had indeed "drafted and approved" a plan to destroy the facility, including possibly by rigging its cooling pond with explosives.

The Ukrainian armed forces have suggested Russia could also stage a lesser disaster, using explosives to accuse Ukraine of "shelling" the plant. The warnings — following the destruction of Ukraine's Kahkovka Dam, with evidence pointing to occupying Russian forces as the culprit — have been accompanied by emergency-response drills.

Russia has repeatedly denied it has any intention of causing a nuclear disaster. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov this week argued that the real threat is Ukrainian "sabotage."

On the eve of the latest IAEA dispatch, however, Ukraine's Budanov said the threat of a serious incident at the plant in southeastern Ukraine was actually "decreasing."

"Sorry, I can't tell you what happened recently but the fact is that the threat is decreasing," the military intelligence chief said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. "This means that at least we have all together, with joint efforts, somehow postponed a technogenic catastrophe."

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