Ukraine said on Friday it had struck a Russian base in Energodar (in the south), not far from the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, where Ukrainians say Russia moved its weapons ahead of an inspection by an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team, AFP reported.

A Russian soldier measures the level of radiation at the Zaporizhia NPPPhoto: Kostyantyn Mikhalchevsky / Sputnik / Profimedia

“In the cities of Kherson and Energodar, three enemy artillery systems, as well as an ammunition warehouse, were destroyed by effective strikes of our troops, and many Russian soldiers were killed,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement.

The Ukrainian military also claimed that Russian troops had evacuated “all their military equipment from the plant’s territory” before the arrival of the IAEA mission on Thursday, some of whose members remained at the plant.

The Zaporizhzhia power plant, Europe’s largest, was seized by Russian forces in March, shortly after Moscow launched its invasion, and the area where the plant is located has been hit by several bombings, raising fears of a nuclear disaster.

Kyiv and Moscow deny responsibility for these attacks and blame each other.

On Thursday morning, before the IAEA mission arrived, Ukrainian authorities accused the Russians of bombing Energodar, a city they control, with the intention of placing the blame on Kyiv.

In a video message on Thursday evening, after the first statements of the Director General of the IAEA, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his dissatisfaction, saying that the organization should have called for the withdrawal of the Russian military from the nuclear power plant.

“Permanent” presence of the IAEA at the NPP

“The main thing that should happen is the demilitarization of the factory territory (…). And it’s a shame that we haven’t heard the corresponding messages from the IAEA yet,” Zelenskyy said, saying that this is “key,” he agreed with the head of the agency, Raphael Grossi, during the visit of an expert mission to Kyiv on Wednesday.

After accusing Kyiv of trying to obstruct the IAEA mission, Russia, for its part, on Friday recognized the experts’ visit as “very positive”.

“It is still too early to give an assessment (…) The team is still there, so it is still early, but the most important thing is that the mission is there,” Kremlin press secretary Dmytro Peskov said.

On Thursday, after inspecting these facilities, IAEA Director General Raffaele Grossi noted that the station’s “physical integrity” had been “violated several times,” stressing that it was “something that cannot, cannot be repeated.” However, he did not name who was responsible, and for weeks the Russians and Ukrainians blamed each other for bombing the area.

The International Atomic Energy Agency now intends to “establish a permanent presence” at the plant, Grossi reiterated.