The atomic energy mission arrives in Zaporizhia amid accusations about the bombing of the city's vicinity

An International Atomic Energy Agency mission has arrived in Zaporizhia, on a mission to avoid a "nuclear accident" at the nuclear plant. While Moscow and Kiev exchanged accusations again of bombing the city's vicinity.

Russia and Ukraine again accused, on Wednesday, of bombing areas around the Zaporizhia nuclear plant, which a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at.

The inspection mission arrived, shortly before noon, Wednesday, to the city of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine, which is about twenty kilometers from the nuclear plant of the same name and controlled by Russian forces, according to journalists from Agence France-Presse.

A convoy of about twenty cars, half of them bearing the "United Nations" logo, and an ambulance, entered the city on Wednesday afternoon.

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Raffaello Grossi, said on Wednesday that the agency's mission was seeking to "avoid a nuclear accident" at the plant.

"It is a mission that seeks to avoid a nuclear accident and to preserve this important nuclear plant, the largest in Europe," he told reporters in the city.

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian authorities accused Russia of bombing a city near the Zaporizhia station.

"The Russian army is bombing Energodar. The situation is dangerous because of these provocations," the official of the Nikopol administration, located off Energodar on the opposite bank of the Dnieper River, said via Telegram.

On Wednesday, Kyiv called on Moscow to stop bombing the road leading to the station.

"The Russian occupying forces must stop firing at the corridors used by the IAEA delegation and not interfere with its activities at the station," Ukrainian diplomatic spokesman Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.

In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry again accused the Ukrainian forces, on Wednesday, of "provocations" aimed at "disrupting the work of the International Atomic Energy Agency mission," stressing that, on Tuesday, Ukrainian artillery hit a building for reprocessing radioactive waste.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received the agency's experts, who arrived Monday in Kyiv, stressing that the international community must obtain from Russia an "immediate disarmament" at the station.

He added that this includes "the withdrawal of all Russian military personnel with all their explosives and weapons" from this site, which Moscow and Kiev exchange accusations of bombing.

"Unfortunately, Russia does not stop its provocations, specifically on the paths from which the mission is supposed to reach the station," he said, warning that the situation was "extremely dangerous." He stressed that "the risks of a nuclear catastrophe as a result of Russia's actions do not recede, not even for an hour."

Gas war

On Tuesday evening, Zelensky said that the fighting on the ground "is currently taking place practically on the entire front line: in the south, in the Kharkiv region (northeast) and Donbass (east)."

And on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian authorities reported the killing of four people in the Donetsk region (east), one of the two provinces in the Donbas basin, which has been partially controlled by pro-Russian forces since 2014, and whose full control is Moscow's strategic priority.

She added that in this area, "heavy fighting continues in the direction of Bakhmut and Avdiivka", as "the Russians tried to advance in vain and were forced to "retreat".

I also talked about the death of at least one person in Mykolaiv in the south, where it was announced that two people were killed and 24 others were injured the day before.

In this region, the Ukrainian army continues its counterattacks, especially around Kherson, one of the few major Ukrainian cities that Moscow has captured since the start of its military operation on February 24.

For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed, on Wednesday, that its forces repelled the Ukrainian attacks in recent days, incurring heavy losses, represented by the destruction of "eight helicopters and 63 tanks" and the killing of "1,700 men."

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian presidency spoke of "strong explosions" in the Kherson region, along with the destruction of "a number of Russian ammunition depots" and "all the main bridges" that allow vehicles to cross the Dnieper River, which irrigates this part of Ukraine, in order to cut off supplies to Crimea.

On Monday, Russia confirmed that it had repulsed Ukrainian "attempts to attack" in the Kherson region, as well as in Mykolaiv, in the west.

And the authorities of Kharkiv (northeast), the second city of Ukraine, announced on Tuesday that at least five people had been killed in Russian bombing.

In the parallel gas war, the Russian giant Gazprom announced Wednesday that it has "completely" halted gas shipments to Europe via the Nord Stream gas pipeline due to maintenance work expected to last three days.