IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi welcomed the news as “a much-needed positive step” for the wellbeing of the facility’s personnel and their families, who have been living and working under extremely stressful and difficult circumstances during the conflict.
The shift change was important for the safe and secure operation of the Chernobyl station, which was controlled by the Russian military for five weeks until they withdrew on 31 March, Mr Grossi said.
But he renewed calls for the IAEA to be able to urgently send its nuclear safety experts to the site to make their own assessment of the status of Chernobyl and restore online monitoring there, which was interrupted at the start of the conflict.
“As soon as it is possible, I will head an IAEA mission to Chernobyl to conduct a radiological assessment there, resume remote safeguards monitoring of the facility and its nuclear material and deliver equipment, including spare parts and components, for the plant’s safe and secure operation,” Mr Grossi said.
“I’m in close consultations with Ukraine on setting a date and organising a programme of work for the visit, which is expected to take place soon.”
During the armed conflict, Mr Grossi has often stressed the necessity of nuclear power station workers being able to carry out their duties without undue pressure and to return to their homes and rest, something that many personnel at Chornobyl have been denied over the past month and a half. The previous change of staff on duty took place on 20-21 March, which in turn was the first since the Russian military entered the site on 24 February.
However, the fact that those taking part in Saturday’s staff rotation had to be transported to and from the site by boat on the Pripyat River – as publicly reported by the national operator Energoatom – underlined that the situation at the Chernobyl station and the exclusion zone around it remained far from normal, Mr Grossi said.
Energoatom said river transportation was the only way for people living in the city of Slavutych outside the zone to get to the station, where radioactive waste management facilities are located following the 1986 accident.
“While it is very positive that Ukrainian authorities are gradually restoring regulatory control of the Chernobyl site, it is clear that a lot of work remains to return the site to normality,” Mr Grossi said.
Ukraine also provided more information about the damage to the site’s analytical laboratories for radiation monitoring, saying the premises were destroyed and the analytical instruments stolen, broken or otherwise disabled. In addition, an associated information and communication centre had been looted, parts of its communication lines destroyed, and the automated transmission of radiation monitoring data disabled.
Ukraine told the IAEA last month that the central analytical laboratory in Chernobyl town had been “looted by marauders” and that it could not confirm the safety and security of its calibration sources nor the condition of environmental samples stored there. Based on the information provided at that time, the IAEA then assessed that the incident did not pose a significant radiological risk.
Eight of Ukraine’s 15 reactors are operating: two at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya site, three at Rovno, two at South Ukraine and now one at the Khmelnitski. The seven other reactors are shut down for regular maintenance or held in reserve.
