Any mission undertaken by the UN's nuclear agency to inspect Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia plant cannot pass through Kyiv as it is too dangerous, a senior Russian diplomat was quoted by news agencies as saying, News.az reports citing TRT World.

"This is a huge risk, given that Ukraine's armed forces are not all made up in the same way," Igor Vishnevetsky, deputy head of the foreign ministry's nuclear proliferation and arms control department, said.

However, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday in New York that the UN Secretary had assessed that it had the logistics and security capacity to be able to support any IAEA mission from Kyiv.

Vishnevetsky was quoted saying any such mission had no mandate to address the "demilitarisation" of the plant as it could only deal with "fulfilment of IAEA guarantees".

APA

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