The mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency leaves for the Ukrainian plant of Zaporizhia

The official confirmation came in the form of a tweet where the head of the Agency, Rafael Grossi, stated his satisfaction at leading the mission to Zaporizhia. The plant was occupied by Russian forces a few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began.

“The day has come,” Grossi said in a message that includes a photograph of all the members of the mission. “We must protect the security of the largest nuclear facility in Ukraine and in Europe. Proud to lead this mission that will be at the plant at the end of the week”, continues the announcement on the social network.

The director general of the Agency indicated that the priorities of the experts will include the damage assessment of the nuclear power plant and the evaluation of the operation of the safety and protection systems.

The safety of plant personnel is a priority

Another of the urgent tasks will be to check the well-being of the Ukrainian personnel who continue to work at the plant where six of the fifteen nuclear reactors in the country are located.

In recent months, Grossi has reiterated his call for access to the Zaporizhia facilities, while urging the withdrawal of all military personnel and that it not be considered a target of war.

In a meeting of Security Council Earlier this month, the IAEA director general declared that, given the uncertainty of the situation and the huge potential threat of a nuclear accident, “time is short.”

An in-person inspection is required

The information provided by Ukraine and Russia on the state of the facility was “contradictory”, the Agency said at the time, regarding its operation and the damage suffered.

Grossi said that only an official in-person visit to Zaporizhia would corroborate these assessments, adding that the Agency’s experts also needed to “verify the status of the reactors and inventories of nuclear material to ensure that they were not diverted from peaceful use.”

The threat of a nuclear catastrophe extends from the civil to the military sphere

“From the steppes of Kazakhstan to the pristine waters of the Pacific Ocean and the deserts of Australia, nuclear testing has long poisoned the natural environment of our planet and the species and people who call it home,” the report said on Monday. General secretary from the ONU.

In his message for the International Day Against Nuclear Tests, António Guterres stressed that “nuclear weapons have no place in our world. They do not guarantee victory or safety. By design, its only result is destruction”.

The head of the UN stressed that, with the reappearance of nuclear tensions, the time has come for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

“Our world has long been held hostage to these deadly artifacts. On this important day, I ask the world to act thinking about the health and survival of people and the planet”, she placed.

Guterres called for an end to this type of testing and to achieve “that nuclear weapons go down in history, once and for all.”

Grain exports continue in the Black Sea

On the other hand, the UN-led initiative to facilitate grain exports from Ukrainian ports to developing countries reported today that nearly 1.25 million metric tons have already been shipped.

The Joint Coordination Center, in which Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the UN participate, reported on Sunday that since the signing of the agreement on July 27 in Istanbul, 114 crossings have already been made (62 in and 52 out). .

The grain will arrive in Yemen

This Monday the departure of three commercial ships with more than 70,000 tons of food on board was authorized.

The first of them, the “Karteria”, left with 37,500 tons of wheat from the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi, in the port city of Yuzhny, in the direction of Türkiye.

The Joint Coordination Center indicated that the grain, acquired by the World Food Program“it will be ground into flour in Türkiye and then loaded onto another ship bound for Yemen.”

A second freighter, the “Peace M”, was to set sail from Odessa to the Romanian city of Constanta with 24,485 tons of corn; and a third, the “Ash Baltic”, was to leave Odessa for the port of El Dekhela, in Egypt, with 11,000 tons of corn.