Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday accused each other of blocking the rotation of staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
Moscow's troops seized the facility, Europe's largest nuclear power station, in the first days of its invasion of Ukraine. Both sides have repeatedly accused the other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster by attacking the site.
Staff from the U.N. nuclear watchdog have been based there since September 2022 to monitor nuclear safety.
Fighting meant the IAEA staff could not be swapped out as part of a planned rotation on Wednesday, the second such delay in a week, both Kyiv and Moscow said, trading blame for the incident.
Inspectors spend around five weeks at the plant in stints before being swapped out in a complex procedure that involves traveling across the front line under supervision from the Russian and Ukrainian militaries.
Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy accused Russia's army of opening fire near where the planned rotation was taking place, saying Moscow's goal was to force the IAEA team to travel through Russian-controlled territory and "violate Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
Russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the Ukrainian army blocked the IAEA team from traveling to an agreed meeting point and were attacking the area with drones, at which point the Russian military withdrew its support team and returned to the station.
"On their return, the convoy carrying Russian military personnel and IAEA experts ... came under attack by drone and mortar strikes," Zakharova said in a statement.
The IAEA staff members were supposed to leave the station on Feb. 5 in a rotation that was also delayed.
IAEA head Rafael Grossi was in both Ukraine and Russia last week, where he discussed the issue of rotations with officials from both countries.
