At the end of December, a backup power line to the ZNPP was disconnected due to damage caused by shelling. According to the IAEA, the ZNPP continues to receive off-site electricity needed to cool the reactors and maintain other important nuclear safety functions via a single external 750 kV power line.
"The Director General is continuing consultations with Ukraine and Russia aimed at agreeing and implementing a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible," the IAEA said in a Friday statement.
Work to restore the backup power line at the ZNPP, which started on December 30, has still not been completed, the release said.
"The situation demonstrates once again the need for all military action with the potential to have an impact on the nuclear safety and security of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants (NPPs) to stop immediately," Director General Grossi said, as cited by the IAEA.
Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev said in December that the Russian state nuclear corporation had taken a number of measures to improve the safety of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant. Likhachev said that Russian and Ukrainian specialists were working together to ensure the safety of the site.
Russia and the IAEA held consultations in Moscow on the issue of the ZNPP safety zone on December 22, according to Rosatom.
On December 17, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of the Zaporozhye regional administration, said that a protective dome was being mounted over the nuclear waste storage at the Zaporozhye NPP to shield it from shell fragments and improvised explosive devices carried by drones.
Located on the left bank of the Dnepr River, the ZNPP is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe in terms of the number of units and output. It went under the control of Russian forces in early March and has since been attacked repeatedly, raising international concerns over a possible nuclear accident.
The IAEA said on Friday that it continues to prepare to deploy its expert teams on a continual basis to the four other Ukrainian nuclear power plants: the Khmelnitsky, Rivne and South Ukraine NPPs, as well as the Chernobyl site.