AP News BY DEREK GATOPOULOS
KYIV (AP) — United Nations inspectors made their way across Ukraine early Wednesday toward the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a mission to help secure the safety of the facility in the middle of a war zone and avoid a nuclear catastrophe.
Yet ominously, the Russia-backed local authorities claimed that Ukrainian forces shelled the territory of the plant and the nearby town of Enerhodar overnight. Both sides have accused each other of bombing the wider area for weeks now, increasing fears of an accident or radiation leak.
“We are going to a war zone. We are going to occupied territory,” Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said of the unprecedented mission for the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog.
“This is the first time, it’s the first time of anybody’s going to cross the front line,” he said, adding that he had received “explicit guarantees” from Russia that the mission of 14 experts would be able to work there.
