The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency is warning of a dangerous situation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant after evacuations began there. Russia has called on residents of 18 towns near Zaporizhia to leave their homes due to a possible counterattack by the Ukrainian military. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, this has created traffic jams and an “unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation”.

“While staff will remain at the plant,” the UN watchdog said in a statement, there are “significant concerns about the increasingly tense, stressful and difficult conditions for staff and their families.”

The Russian-appointed head of the region, Yevgeny Paletsky, said on Friday that “in recent days the enemy has attacked places close to the front.” As a result, he decided to “evacuate children, parents, the elderly, people with disabilities and hospital patients,” he wrote on social media.

Ivan Fedorov, the refugee Ukrainian mayor of the captured city of Melitopol, says via Telegram that the evacuation is going very quickly. The evacuation call led to “a feverish panic and an equally frenzied build-up,” he said. Because buses carry people every 20 to 30 minutes, gas stations run out of gas, Fedorov said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency had warned several times before of an escalation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. Last August, they were allowed into the factory for inspection. Russia resisted this for a long time, but after the intervention of French President Macron, they fought back. Two experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency have resided there permanently since then.

Abel Bormans