The situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, located in Ukrainian territory that has been under Russian occupation since 2022, remains a source of widespread concern. In this context, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, and Russian President Vladimir Putin held an unannounced meeting in Sochi, a coastal city on the Black Sea, this past Wednesday.
Sources cited by El Periódico de Cataluña, part of Prensa Ibérica, indicated that the discussion lasted more than an hour and that the security of the plant was one of the main topics addressed. These sources did not disclose further details about this issue, even as Grossi had warned in the days prior that the Ukrainian facility is in a scenario without precedent, a situation that he described as a matter of extreme concern.
Reuters later reported that the Kremlin offered a brief version of the Sochi talks, noting that Putin and Grossi had previously met in Saint Petersburg in October 2022. In this latest exchange, Putin reportedly told Grossi that he would be willing to discuss highly sensitive and important topics on the energy security agenda and to do whatever it takes to ensure safety wherever nuclear energy is involved, according to the Russian leader as relayed by the British agency.
Tension
Relations remained cooler in the account provided by Russia’s RIA news agency, which described Grossi’s meetings in Sochi as tense. RIA also noted that the IAEA chief met with Aleksei Likhachev, head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, but characterized that encounter as tense as well, with no further details offered.
The persistent concern around Zaporizhzhia stems from the plant’s unstable power status. It is Europe’s largest nuclear facility, and it has suffered eight total disconnections from all external power lines in the past 18 months. Those outages force the plant to rely on diesel generators to maintain essential functions such as cooling the reactor fuel. Although one of the plant’s energy lines is operational at present, the IAEA continues to describe the overall situation as precarious, a risk heightened by ongoing bombardments in the surrounding area.
In related discussions, officials indicated that Iran also featured on the agenda. The IAEA has been alarmed by Tehran’s continuing accumulation of enriched uranium and by the lack of progress in diplomacy with the country, concerns that persist alongside broader regional tensions.
[Citations: Reuters, IAEA statements, RIA Novosti coverage]