The image is meant to be solemn, marked by the seriousness of the moment. On the morning of Monday August 29, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) posted on Twitter a photo of the 13 experts accompanying him to Ukraine for an unprecedented inspection mission.
Arms crossed, faces gloomy under their blue caps, they should arrive ” this week “ at the nuclear power plant of Zaporijjia, the largest in Europe, threatened for weeks by the bombardments of the belligerents.
Russian troops captured the plant – located on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River – in March, just weeks after the invasion began on February 24. The site, which houses six of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors, produces 20% of the electricity consumed by the country.
A “totally unprecedented” situation
Russia, which is stationing its soldiers and military equipment on the perimeter of the plant, accuses Ukraine of firing from the west bank of the river. For its part, kyiv claims that Russia is bombing the area to blame Ukraine. But the IAEA’s mission will not aim to clarify the responsibilities. Its purpose is to estimate the extent, for the time being unknown, of the damage inflicted by the bombings at the plant, and to observe the working conditions there.
This inspection looks like “the most difficult mission in the history of the IAEA”said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. Since its creation in 1957, the IAEA has already faced missions “complicated” : in North Korea, Iraq and Iran on questions of non-proliferation, or even in Chernobyl and Fukushima following major nuclear accidents.
Nothing like Zaporizhia, however, a civilian facility in operation threatened by bombardment. «The IAEA has already carried out missions in Ukraine during the war, for example in Chernobyl from April 25 to 28, 2022, but the Russian military had already evacuated the siterecalls Michaël Mangeon, associate researcher at the Environment, City and Society (EVS) laboratory. The situation of the Zaporijjia power station, occupied by the Russians and industrially exploited by the Ukrainians, is totally unprecedented. »
An important first step
The risks envisaged and the reference standards used by the experts are however “in strong continuity” with previous cases (Chernobyl, Fukushima), notes Valérie Arnhold, teacher-researcher in sociology at EM-Lyon and associate researcher at Sciences Po. “The vulnerability of the power supply, the possibility of an accident in nuclear waste storage sites: these scenarios have already been studied”, she notes. But paradoxically, this available knowledge can also cause some difficulty in understanding new situations.
According to her, the singularity of this mission lies rather in the long negotiations which preceded it. These discussions usually relate to the parameters of the mission: the specifications, the specific questions that will be asked, the methods of publication, etc. “and thus indirectly the possible conclusions”, warns Valerie Arnhold.
“The results of this visit will no doubt be limited, at least initially,” agrees Michaël Mangeon, according to whom the IAEA is not going “save Zaporizhia” with this visit. “Safety and security issues cannot be resolved immediately. But it is an important first step. »