On April 27, the Chornobyl NPP was visited by the IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
Mr. Grossi was accompanied by the Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Roman Abramovskyi, Chairman of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine Hryhorii Plachkov, and managers of the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management.
Having speech at the foot of the New Safe Confinement (NSC) Mr Grossi stated: “Behind us is a piece of history; history of Ukraine and, of course, to a big extent, of all humanity. But also it is a sign of how a big challenge, like this [the accident at ChNPP and its consequences – ed.], can be tackled and can be dealt in an appropriate way.”
In his speech the IAEA Director General also highlighted that the most important work is still to be done, and he is very glad that the IAEA starts a new era and a very active phase of cooperation with Ukraine – i.e. the Shelter transformation into an environmentally safe system.
After visiting the NSC, Mr. Grossi attended the new Interim Spent Fuel Dry Storage Facility (ISF-2) which obtained the operating license on 26 April 2021. At both facilities – i.e. NSC and ISF-2 – the ChNPP operational staff reported the current state of the sites and progress of works.
Note that the last visit of the IAEA Director General (Yukiya Amano) to the ChNPP site took place 10 years ago during the events marking the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster.
