Energy Minister German Galushchenko, after a meeting with IAEA head Rafael Grossi, stated that the organization was not just flirting with Russia, but "playing on someone else's field. According to him, there is an attempt to legitimize the presence of Russian troops at ZNPP.

Galushchenko said this in an interview with Ukrainian media.

"If there are intentions to visit the Zaporizhzhya plant before Ukraine returns control over it, this is not flirting - this is playing on someone else's field - the Russian field. To me, it looks like an attempt to legitimize the presence of Russian troops at the Zaporizhzhya plant," he said.

According to him, Ukraine insists that the first and main element of nuclear security is the withdrawal of the Russian military from our nuclear facilities. "You can't talk about nuclear safety as long as Russian occupation troops are there. The question is that only Ukraine, not the Russian military, can act as a guarantor of nuclear safety at its nuclear facilities," Galushchenko said.

The minister recalled that the way the Zaporizhzhya plant was seized was "nuclear terrorism in all its glory."

"They fired from tanks and mortars. Then they collected shells at the station that didn't explode. They collected them, took them outside the perimeter of the station and blew them up under the training building, which is also marasmus from the point of view of nuclear safety. And in general, the presence of a tank at a nuclear power plant, the shells... "Anything can happen there, something could explode," he said.

The minister believes that it is absurd to talk about nuclear safety or any apoliticism in such a situation. "There can't be nuclear safety when the shells are near nuclear reactors!" - he added.