Putin allows inspectors to visit Russia-held nuclear plant via Ukraine

Odessa, Ukraine: Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed for a team of independent inspectors to travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant via Ukraine, the French presidency said on Friday.

                  The apparent resolution of a dispute over whether inspectors travel to the plant via Ukraine or Russia came as a senior US defence official said Ukraine’s forces had brought the Russian advance to a halt.

                  “You are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the official said, speaking to reporters on grounds of anonymity.

                  According to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office, Putin had “reconsidered the demand” that the International Atomic Energy Agency travel through Russia to the site, after the Russian leader himself warned fighting there could bring about a “catastrophe”.

                  It specified that Putin had dropped his demand that the IAEA team travel to the site via Russia, saying it could arrive via Ukraine.

                  The UN nuclear watchdog’s chief, Rafael Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the IAEA’s aim to send a mission to” the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

                  The agency was “in active consultations with all parties” towards sending one as soon as possible, Grossi said..

                  Meanwhile, UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Moscow’s forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant in south Ukraine not to disconnect the facility from the grid and potentially cut supplies to millions of Ukrainians.

                  A flare-up in fighting around the Russian-controlled nuclear power station — with both sides blaming each other for attacks — has raised the spectre of a disaster worse than in Chernobyl.

                  The Kremlin said earlier that Putin and Macron agreed that the IAEA should carry out inspections “as soon as possible” to “assess the real situation on the ground”.

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