Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), occupied by the Russian military since March 4, 2022, has completed the planned transition of its reactor unit 5 to cold shutdown while moving reactor unit 4 to hot shutdown, contrary to the requirements of Ukraine's national nuclear regulator – the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRIU), Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi has said.

At the same time, as noted referring to Grossi in the IAEA update on Ukraine on its website on Saturday, the agency's experts at the site urged ZNPP have been encouraging the ZNPP to investigate all possible options to install an external boiler instead to generate the steam required, which would enable the site to bring all units into a cold shutdown state. The Ukrainian inspectorate had issued regulatory orders to limit the operation of all six units to a cold shutdown state.

The IAEA explained that The ZNPP conducted this change in reactor status to carry out maintenance activities at unit 5 that are only possible in cold shutdown. Unit 5 was transitioned into cold shutdown yesterday morning, three days after unit 4 shifted to hot shutdown, its steam is now being used to treat wastewater at the ZNPP.

During a walkdown within the site's perimeter on Thursday (July 27), the team confirmed that the mines that they observed on 23 July were still in place.

At the same time, the IAEA is also continuing to request access to the roofs of the ZNPP's reactors and their turbine halls. The team could not go to the cooling pond retention gate to see the progress of the construction of an additional barrier being put in place.

"The team was informed that the construction was completed but access was not authorised," the IAEA said.

The IAEA team reported that the available water supply remains relatively stable, with the water level in the site's large cooling pond decreasing by around 1 centimetre per day due to usage and evaporation. The combination of the water pumping and heavy rain experienced during the week has seen the height of the ZTPP discharge channel increase by around 25 centimetres.

"The site continues to have sufficient water for some months," the IAEA predicts.

They confirmed that the online data transmission to the SNRIU is still not working. As an interim measure, the data from the off-site radiation monitoring stations are manually provided to the IAEA team, which also regularly conducts independent radiation monitoring at the site. The off-site data and the team's measurements are uploaded by the IAEA to the IAEA's International Radiation Monitoring Information System (IRMIS).

However, The IAEA teams at the Chornobyl, Rivne, Khmelnytsky, and Pivdennoukrainska NPPs did not report any issues related to nuclear safety or security over the past week and have observed nothing unusual at the sites. Rotations of IAEA teams were completed this week at the Rivne, Khmelnytsky, and Pivdennoukrainska NPPs.

As reported, Head of the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine Oleh Korikov at a press conference on July 28 said that the risks for the ZNPP are significantly increasing, and the possibilities of the inspection, the operating organization, and other institutions of Ukraine to respond to the accident are minimal.