UK statement on Ukraine - IAEA Board of Governors September 2026

Chair,

We commend the Agency's continued efforts to monitor the situation and reduce the risk of a nuclear accident in Ukraine. We particularly welcome the Agency's success in brokering the recent ceasefire necessary to restore off-site power to ZNPP.

But this fact alone should alarm us.

Nuclear facilities should never depend on temporary ceasefires to conduct essential repairs.

They should never depend on emergency diesel generators to maintain safety systems.

And they should certainly never operate with so little resilience that fuel deliveries become critical to maintaining day-to-day nuclear safety.

Yet this is precisely the situation Russia has created at ZNPP. Although offsite power has now been restored, the IAEA warned only days ago that without restored power, the plant could face a station blackout, underscoring the fragility of the situation.

The margin for error is shrinking. Each time this Board meets, it grows smaller still.

Chair,

The Director General's report is deeply troubling. Developments over the last three months point to the continued erosion of the layers of defence on which nuclear safety depends.

ZNPP experienced ten losses of off-site power during this reporting period, bringing the total since the start of the conflict to twenty-six. More than one-third of all such events recorded during the conflict occurred in the last three months.

That statistic alone should give us all pause. And it is difficult to reconcile with Russia's repeated claims of commitment to nuclear safety. If they were genuine, we would expect the situation to improve.

Instead, the calls of this Board continue to go unheeded. And the trend is unmistakable: Resilience is decreasing. Risk is increasing.

The deterioration does not stop there. The report records a dramatic degradation of the systems needed to detect and respond to a nuclear emergency.

At the start of the reporting period, more than two-thirds of off-site radiation monitoring stations around ZNPP were transmitting data. By mid-July, fewer than one-third remained operational.

Put plainly: if there were a nuclear emergency tomorrow, there is now a greater risk that it would be detected later, understood later, and responded to later. At a site where the situation remains dangerously fragile, that should concern us all.

Chair,

More than four years into Russia's seizure of ZNPP, we are seeing the threat of an accident only increase. Yet what does Russia do?

It ignores the repeated calls of this Board and the General Conference.

It talks about nuclear safety at this Board while ignoring the very standards it claims to defend.

It seeks to deflect responsibility for a situation of its own making while continuing to present itself as a champion of nuclear safety.

This Board should not become desensitised to warnings that grow more serious with every report. We must not normalise a situation that Russia created, sustains, and refuses to resolve.

No amount of rhetoric can obscure the reality: Russia created this risk, and Russia must end it by withdrawing from ZNPP and returning the plant to Ukrainian control.

Thank you, Chair.