MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin will speak with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi if necessary, but such a meeting is currently not on the Russian president’s work schedule, Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"There are no planned meetings on [Putin’s] schedule if we are speaking about Grossi," Peskov told journalists, adding that the Russian president and the IAEA chief agreed during their meeting in St. Petersburg last October "to carry on with the dialogue if necessary."
"This is why, if the need should arise and there is a corresponding request, a telephone conversation or a meeting is definitely possible," he said.
The last time that Putin and Grossi met was in October 2022, in St. Petersburg. The IAEA director general called relations with the Russian leader extremely important from the point of view of ensuring the safety of nuclear power facilities, including the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant.
Peskov added that "Grossi’s key partners to talk to on the issue are [the Russian civilian nuclear power corporation] Rosatom and its Director General [Alexey] Likhacyov as well as the Russian Foreign Ministry."
The presidential spokesman noted that the situation regarding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant "was still alarming," adding that the "Ukrainian side believes it is acceptable to keep shelling the plant."
IAEA head Grossi announced on Wednesday his plans to visit Ukraine next week and possibly travel to Russia afterwards, hinting at a meeting with Russian President Putin.
On December 2, 2022, IAEA Director General Grossi announced at the Mediterranean Dialogues international conference in Rome that an agreement on creating a security zone around the Zaporozhye NPP could be reached shortly.
Alexey Likhachyov, who heads Rosatom, the Russian civilian nuclear power corporation, earlier said that the security arrangement being discussed with Grossi ruled out any bombardments of the Zaporozhye nuke plant.
On November 17, 2022, the IAEA adopted a new resolution on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, calling on Russia "to immediately abandon its baseless claims of ownership of the plant." Russia and China voted against this resolution while India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia abstained from voting. Russia’s permanent mission in Vienna chided the IAEA’s resolution as going beyond the UN nuclear watchdog’s mandate.
The Zaporozhye nuclear plant, located in the town of Energodar, is the largest in Europe and has a capacity of about 6,000 MW. It used to generate a quarter of all electric power in Ukraine. In March 2022, the Zaporozhye facility was placed under the Russian army’s control. Since then, the Ukrainian military has been periodically bombarding both Energodar’s residential quarters and the premises of the Zaporozhye nuke plant, employing drones, heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems.
