MOSCOW: The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the UN agency will be “staying” at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine after a Thursday visit to the facility.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi led a team of inspectors to the Russian-controlled plant that has been frequently shelled in recent weeks raising fears of a nuclear incident.

“We have achieved something very important today and the important thing is the IAEA is staying here. Let the world know that the IAEA is staying at Zaporizhzhia,” Grossi said after the inspection in a video released by the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

He did not specify how many people would be staying and for how long. Earlier he said the IAEA would seek to establish a “permanent presence” at the atomic plant.

During the inspection “we were able in these few hours to put together a lot of information. The key things I needed to see I saw, and your explanations were very clear”, Grossi added.

He noted the “dedicated work” of the plant’s staff and managers who are “carrying on professionally with their work” despite “very difficult circumstances”.

According to the Russian news agency Interfax, Grossi and part of his team left the plant on Thursday afternoon in four of the nine vehicles by which the IAEA arrived.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Europe’s largest nuclear facility – has faced repeated shelling in recent weeks, with Kyiv and Moscow blaming each other for the attacks, raising concerns of a possible incident.

Ukraine was the scene of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986, when a reactor at the northern Chernobyl plant exploded and spewed radiation into the atmosphere.