The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is preparing comprehensive assistance packages and is completing logistical preparations for several of its nuclear safety and safeguards missions in Ukraine to deploy in the coming weeks, agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said.
“We are ready to transport spare parts and components to Ukraine and provide expertise and advice both on site and beyond. In the coming weeks, we will move our relief activities to a much faster speed,” said Grossi, quoted in IAEA daily statement on Ukraine on the website on Friday.
According to the report, the IAEA’s priority is to send safety and safeguards personnel to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant as soon as possible.
It notes that the staff will conduct a radiological assessment, deliver safety-related equipment, and restore an online radiation monitoring system that stopped working during the occupation of the site by Russian troops in the five weeks prior to their March 31 withdrawal.
In order to implement plans to send the mission, the director general is consulting and closely coordinating with Ukraine on both the issue of IAEA assistance to its nuclear facilities and the issue of the schedule of expert missions, which are expected to begin later this month, the report said.
“To do this, we will also rely on the continued support of our partners,” Grossi said.
At the same time, the IAEA will concentrate on itself all issues of international technical assistance to Ukraine, and is now in close contact with many countries that have expressed interest in supporting its efforts to ensure the security of Ukrainian nuclear facilities.
The report notes that the G7 group of nonproliferation directors, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, in a statement released on Thursday, welcomed the efforts of the IAEA director general to ensure nuclear security in Ukraine.
