International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday and inspected an electricity distribution substation, warning that attacks on Ukraine's power grid could pose a risk of a nuclear accident by disrupting supply.
"I’m at Kyivska electrical substation — an important part of Ukraine’s power grid essential for nuclear safety," Grossi wrote on X. "A nuclear accident can result from a direct attack on a plant, but also from power supply disruption."
Grossi posted pictures of him visiting the substation alongside Energy Minister German Galushchenko, and being shown what appeared to be defences against Russian strikes.
Moscow has regularly bombarded Ukraine's energy infrastructure, including substations, throughout its nearly three-year-old invasion, although it has avoided direct strikes on Ukraine's nuclear plants.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking in his nightly video address, said he and Grossi discussed the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, seized by Russia in the early weeks of Moscow's February 2022 invasion.
Zelenskyy said the IAEA should play an active role to "secure the release" of people he described as "hostages" living near the plant -- a probable reference to staff at the station obliged to work for Russian managers now running it.
He issued a fresh call for the plant to be returned to Ukrainian control. Each side routinely accuses the other of staging attacks on the station and risking a nuclear accident.
Zelenskyy said he and Grossi agreed the IAEA would expand its activity at Ukraine's nuclear facilities and other infrastructure sites.
Grossi said he would visit Russia later this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine and at the Zaporizhzhia plant.
"It's essential that I, in the discharge of my obligations, keep channels of communication constantly," Grossi told a news briefing.
Last week, the IAEA said in a statement that Grossi would visit Kyiv for high-level meetings to ensure nuclear safety in the war that Russia started in February 2022.
In September, Ukraine and the IAEA agreed that the agency's experts would monitor the situation at key Ukrainian substations in addition to monitoring nuclear plants.
More than half of the electricity consumed in Ukraine is generated by three nuclear plants. Russian missile and drone attacks on substations threaten the plants' stable operation, according to Ukraine's nuclear inspector's office.
The Kyivska substation allows excess capacity from Ukraine's west to be transferred to central regions thanks to the Rivne-Kyiv transmission line which extends for hundreds of km (miles), helping with power supply to Kyiv and the surrounding region.
"An increasingly fragile grid poses a growing risk to all NPPs", Grossi said on X, referring to nuclear power plants.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
21 Comments
JJE
This is nothing more than an exaggerated stunt. Moscow command knows full well how to tickle their energy grid.
They are getting desperate - they know they can safely put them into cold shutdown instead of irresponsibly running them to fuel the war industries but won't.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was built by the USSR: surely they don't want a monument to the Soviets, what with their ongoing Derussification/DeSovietization campaigns, which it would run counter to.
Also built by the USSR (and like the USA/Panama Canal), Moscow has rights in how the facility and general zone are managed.
TaiwanIsNotChina
An interesting proposal has come from Ukraine to use more nuclear power. Even the russian terrorists have the brain cells to realize that striking a nuclear power plant will cause problems their suicide charges can't compensate for.
TaiwanIsNotChina
I suppose you think Ukraine should just roll out the red carpet for the terrorists?
Not according to any sort of international law.
JJE
Russian law supersedes international law (much like US law does), especially when it comes to existential threats, which means national security.
No nuclear plants have been struck by Russia - suggest you actually read the article, as the article even confirms this decent fact. Moreover, they are inspecting a substation in Kyiv (visible in the photo), which any reasonable person (especially also in the Pentagon) concedes is a 100% very legitimate target.
There is no nuclear plant even close to Kyiv, with two in the far west of the country and one in the far south.
TaiwanIsNotChina
There was no threat to russia prior to Feb. 24th, 2022. Rubber-stamp laws do not excuse war crimes.
That's why I said that even the terrorist understands that nuclear plants can't be targets for barbarism.
And that is why there needs to be many more if possible and they should be used for the full extent of activities to expel the terrorist invader.
asdfgtr
Putin has MELTDOWN as Kim DEFIES Russia in SHOCK move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZlIj-ByqoY&ab_channel=BusinessBasics
JJE
Oh, I see... certain quarters think these nuclear plants should be weaponized.
How convenient.
Attitudes like this that absolutely confirm the necessity and decency of all actions.
Russia has every right to protect the people of the south-east and itself from these imminent threats.
stormcrow
Russia doesn’t give a damn, even if causing a nuclear accident would be the same thing as pooping on itself. Mindless! Insane! Stupid! All of the above!
TaiwanIsNotChina
Papa Trump just announced he wants to be in a shooting war with Hamas. How is that gaslighting campaign working out for ya?
TaiwanIsNotChina
Maybe don't try to wipe a free people off of the map next time.
JJE
No people are being wiped off a map. The lines on the map are being adjusted.
Fos
As we all know the main responsible for this full scale disaster is the big US industrial military complex, the same one that President Dwight Eisenhower warned against in 1961, still taking decision at the White House.
The same apparatus in Washington should find any means to stop the mass killings of the Ukrainians soldiers on the battlefield, who want peace negotiations to start soon as possible, even if that would certainly means less profits for the warlords in Wall Street.
Megan Thee Stallion
Putin has MELTDOWN as Kim DEFIES Russia in SHOCK move:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZlIj-ByqoY&ab_channel=BusinessBasics
This pretty low level stuff, you believe this sis?
stormcrow
Russian way of thinking . . .
Crap on itself and its neighbors first, ignore any and all questions later.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Uh huh, just like Israel, russia's equal in genocide.
TaiwanIsNotChina
The guy literally above you talks about a Ukrainian rump state all of the time.
Switched to the old copypasta, huh? Easily disproved by:
russia was in shelling distance of Kharkiv at the time.
Animals like Putin don't just run away unless made to suffer.
Ukrainians feel no ill feelings about Boris Johnson because they are well familiar with the maskirovka.TaiwanIsNotChina
On the contrary: the Gaza developments have rendered the apologists gaslighting so weak he is reduced to just spinning the wheel now and seeing what might still stick.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Still Putin's War