Almost half of Chernobyl nuclear plant staff was able to rotate, IAEA says

About half of Chernobyl’s nuclear plant employees were allowed to rotate and return to their homes, according to Ukraine’s nuclear regulator, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

According to the IAEA, those that were able to exit the plant had been working for about four weeks.

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IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi tweeted that he welcomed news of the staff’s rotation, emphasizing “they deserve our full respect and admiration for having worked in these extremely difficult circumstances. They were there for far too long. I sincerely hope that remaining staff from this shift can also rotate soon.”

Grossi also said he is “continuing consultations with a view to agree on a framework for the delivery of IAEA assistance. The initiative aims to ensure safety and security at Ukraine’s nuclear sites.”

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After losing on-site power, they reconnected to the national power system.

The site was receiving all essential electricity from the repaired line as of Monday, allowing personnel to turn off the emergency diesel generators they had been dependent on since March 9, according to a statement.

According to the watchdog, since the Russian military took control of the nuclear station on February 24, the site’s 211 technical workers and guards have been “in effect living there for the past three weeks.”

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The Ukrainian regulator informed the IAEA that the information it got about Chernobyl was “controlled by the Russian military forces,” so it couldn’t “always provide detailed answers to all” queries raised.

Chernobyl, an abandoned nuclear site, bears the key to Vladimir Putin’s endgame in Ukraine. According to political commentators, seizing Chernobyl was always a goal of Moscow’s. This is due to the fact that Chernobyl is located on the shortest route between Belarus and Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. The same road that Russian soldiers attempted to take to infiltrate Kyiv.