The report’s release came during a visit to the plant by agency head Rafael Grossi, who last week announced that one of the site’s cooling towers would likely have to be demolished following a fire that ravaged it last month.

It was the first time IAEA teams had, in fact, been allowed inside the cooling tower, which agency experts had repeatedly sought permission from the Russian occupiers to inspect on numerous occasions, only to be denied.

Fire broke out in the tower on August 11, with Russia and Ukraine accusing each other of actions that triggered the blaze. Grossi at the time described the incident as one of numerous “reckless attacks,” but did not attribute blame nor elucidate the cause.

Grossi also inspected pumping stations and fresh fuel storage at the site — which could point to aspirations of the Russian occupiers to eventually restart one or more of the reactors, said Bellona expert Dmitry Gorchakov, who has written a detailed report on such a possibility.

The IAEA’s 28-page document highlights the challenges of the IAEA’s activities to protect Europe’s largest nuclear power station, which is on the frontline of fighting and has been under Russian control since soon after the February 2022 invasion.

Throughout this time, IAEA teams at the site have reported on incidents including shelling and drone strikes at the facility. The plant has also suffered repeated loss of offsite power, which hobbles its cooling systems.

Since Grossi last went to the Zaporizhzhia site in February, the plant has experienced loss of powerlines in addition to the cooling tower fire, and the nearby plant worker’s settlement of Enerhodar has been strafed by drone attacks.

Grossi said the IAEA’s “comprehensive assistance” to Ukraine has seen 59 deliveries of equipment needed to maintain nuclear safety and security, with a total value of over $11 million. In total, the IAEA has conducted 139 support and assistance missions to the nuclear sites in Ukraine, the report said.

Grossi also recently visited the Kursk nuclear plant in Russia, which after an August 6 cross-border incursion by Ukrainian troops last month, is at risk of becoming yet another nuclear facility drawn into the war. 

Russia claimes the Kursk plant has been attacked by Ukrainian forces, citing fragments of a drone found at the site – though the origins of the drone have not been established.

Grossi said during that visit that the Kursk plant was extremely fragile because it had no protective dome and that the “danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here.”

Ukraine’s foreign ministry last Thursday denounced what it said were Russian efforts to accuse Ukraine of provocations that threatened nuclear safety, saying this was a “disinformation campaign to distract attention from its own criminal acts at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant”.

In its report, the IAEA wrote that it has also continued safeguards verification activities across Ukraine, ensuring that there is no diversion of nuclear material for military purposes. Assistance programs were established in the areas of health care and the nuclear safety and security of radioactive sources.

The agency also implemented programs to support Ukraine in managing the impact of the flooding of the Kherson Oblast and other regions in the aftermath of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam.

A few months after the establishment of the IAEA’s presence at Zaporizhzhia, Grossi set up similar missions at the four other nuclear facilities in Ukraine – the Khmelnitski, Rivne and South Ukraine nuclear power plants, and the shut-down Chernobyl site.