IAEA has no access to control of nuclear material in territories occupied by Russia

Deputy Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Yuriy Vitrenko made a corresponding statement during the consideration of the IAEA report for 2020 on November 17, an Ukrinform correspondent reported from New York.

The IAEA was unable to make a broader conclusion about Ukraine in 2020, he said, due to Russia's temporary occupation of Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

"This is an exceptional and unprecedented situation where one Member State prevents the Agency from fulfilling its statutory mandate in the territory of another Member State. This is an urgent problem that must be properly and promptly resolved within the IAEA," Vitrenko said, noting that there is a lack of timely response from the international community to such actions.

Russia seized former warehouses of nuclear weapons located in Crimea and deploys vehicles for the movement of nuclear weapons on the peninsula, he noted.

"All these actions obviously jeopardize the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and pose a serious threat to regional and global security and stability, so they must be properly addressed by the international community," the diplomat added.

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