China, Turkey and the World Must Lean On Putin to Avert Nuclear Disaster
Creating a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is the only way to keep it safe.
The IAEA’s action heroes.
Photographer: Dean Calma/International Atomic Energy Agency
It’s not every day the International Atomic Energy Agency dispatches monitors looking like Hollywood action heroes on a mission to save civilization. But that’s an apt description of the IAEA team now inspecting the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. It’s Europe’s largest nuclear reactor complex and sits right on the front line between the Ukrainian defenders and Russian invaders. The IAEA’s goal is to avert a radiation disaster.
The Russians seized ZNPP in March and have held it since. The same Ukrainian engineers — or those who haven’t escaped yet — still run the complex, but now they’re hostages and working under duress. Although the IAEA monitors will talk to them, it’s unclear whether the Ukrainians will be able to speak frankly in the presence of their captors.