“It is obvious that the plant and physical integrity of the plant have been violated several times,” he said. “By chance or by deliberation? We don’t have the elements to assess that. But this cannot continue to happen.”
The five members of the team who remained behind were “unloading the equipment they brought and will continue working at the plant” until Saturday, the company said in a statement. It was not immediately clear what equipment they had brought or what tasks they would carry out in the coming days.
The I.A.E.A. had said earlier that the monitors, who braved heavy shelling on their journey across the front line in southern Ukraine, were going to the plant “to conduct indispensable nuclear safety and security and safeguards activities.” Their mission included checking on safety systems, assessing damage to the plant and evaluating the staff’s working conditions.
Among the main concerns the agency has raised is that fires or other damage from shelling could cause cooling systems to fail and lead to a nuclear meltdown.
Hours before they arrived, artillery shells struck the sprawling complex and caused damage, Energoatom said, highlighting the safety risks the team had come to assess. Russia and Ukraine traded accusations about which side had fired the shells.
It took weeks of delicate negotiations for Russia and Ukraine to agree to the I.A.E.A. visit, but it remained unclear how much the experts would be able to do during a short visit to the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, which lies in an intensifying combat zone and has been repeatedly struck by shelling.
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