THE head of the United Nations atomic energy commission said on Wednesday that intensified fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant poses a threat to the facility’s safety.

The increasing combat makes it urgent to find a way to prevent a catastrophic nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Mariano Grossi. 

“It is obvious that this area is facing perhaps a more dangerous phase,” he said of the facility, which is in a partially Russian-occupied part of Ukraine.

“We have to step up our efforts to get to some agreement over the protection of the plant.”

Mr Grossi has struggled to agree with Russian and Ukrainian authorities on a deal to secure the plant, which has been hit several times during the conflict. 

The site has also suffered several losses of external power needed to cool its six shut-down reactors, forcing it to rely on emergency back-up generators.

Wednesday’s visit to the plant was Mr Grossi’s second since the start of the war. He tried for months to negotiate a deal to secure the zone around the complex, but he said at a news conference that the concept “is evolving” to focus more on protecting the plant itself.

Mr Grossi said that he was working on “realistic measures” and had narrowed the scope in the hopes of reaching agreement on a mutually acceptable plan.

“Initially we were focusing on the possibility of the establishment of a well determined zone around the plant,” he told reporters during his visit. 

Mr Grossi met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday and said he would “most probably” head to Moscow in the coming days.

Russian forces took over the plant after their invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

President Zelensky opposes any proposal that would legitimise Russia’s control of the plant.