The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was recently denied access to reactor facilities at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant for “security reasons”, Moscow said on Friday, having occupied the site for nearly two years, AFP reported.

In the hands of Russian forces since March 2022, the Zaporizhia plant, the largest in Europe, has suffered several power outages caused by the fighting, and the Russian military regularly accuses Ukraine of threatening the plant, Agerpres reports.

This unstable situation raises fears of a major nuclear accident, despite the presence of IAEA experts on the ground.

The tension between Moscow and Kyiv on this issue is recurring, and the IAEA is trying to act as a mediator, while guaranteeing the safety of the nuclear power plant together with the Russians.

However, the UN agency complained on Wednesday that its experts had been denied access to several areas of the plant.

“For the past two weeks, they have been denied access to the reactor rooms of Units 1, 2 and 6,” the “first” which was the “reactor housing of the shutdown unit,” the UN agency said in a statement. .

On Friday, the representative of the Russian nuclear agency “Rosenergoatom”, Renat Karchaa, justified this decision, referring to “safety measures”.

“When the reactor compartment is sealed and closed, station personnel can only be present in emergency situations or for scheduled work,” he said, according to Russian daily RBC.

“A closed enclosure, let alone a sealed one, is not a museum or a free walking area,” he added.

The Zaporizhzhya Power Plant is located in the city of Energodar, near the Dnipro River, which is a natural front between Russians and Ukrainians. The place is also located 50 kilometers southwest of the city of the same name, Zaporizhzhia.