The IAEA warns of a “drastic reduction” of Ukrainian personnel at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant

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Jan. 19 () –

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, warned this Thursday of the “drastic reduction” of Ukrainian personnel that has been experienced in recent months at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.

According to Grossi at a press conference, this reduction of Ukrainian specialists has occurred since Russia took control of the plant facilities, considered one of the largest in Europe and in dispute between kyiv and Moscow since the beginning of war.

“Normally a facility like this has around 10,000 people working, and now we have 3,000, more or less,” said Grossi, who believes that although the number of employees is in line with the “low level” of operation of the plant, it does not leave of being a “reason for concern”.

In this context, the highest representative of the IAEA has guaranteed the proper functioning of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant thanks to the personnel that the agency has assigned there, who have also verified the resistance of the security systems of the facilities.

“Almost a year after the start of the conflict (…) we have had very difficult times when the facilities have been operating in emergency mode and we saw the resilience of the system,” Grossi stressed, according to the US news channel .

Finally, Grossi stressed that the agency is “very concerned” with the situation in Zaporizhia because “a nuclear accident or an accident with serious radiological consequences is possible every day.”

In this sense, he has advocated once again for implementing a security zone around the plant, a matter that already on Wednesday already expressed his hope that it would materialize “very, very soon.”