By — Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins By — Cai Pigliucci Cai Pigliucci Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-n-inspectors-reach-nuclear-plant-caught-in-crossfire-of-ukrainian-and-russian-fighting Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio U.N. inspectors made it to Europe's largest nuclear plant on a mission to avert disaster. The Zaporizhzhia plant is caught in the crossfire of Ukrainian and Russian fighting. Lisa Desjardins reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Judy Woodruff: In Ukraine, nuclear inspectors are now inside an endangered power plant. They arrived today to assess damage from fighting around the site.Lisa Desjardins has our report. Lisa Desjardins: Inside a war zone, a mission to avert disaster. U.N. nuclear experts today made it to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe's largest, a place caught in the crossfire of Ukrainian and Russian shelling.Zaporizhzhia rests along the Dnipro River inside a battle zone. It is currently held by Russians, but operated by Ukrainians. Both sides agreed to access by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA. Its six reactors make this plant particularly perilous. Rafael Grossi, Director General, IAEA: Weighing the pros and conservative, and having come so far, we are not stopping. We are moving now. Lisa Desjardins: Fighting near the plant has gone on for six months, since the start of the war, sparking international outcry… Lisa Desjardins: … and fears of a meltdown that would dwarf Chernobyl.Just today, shelling shut down one reactor and set off emergency procedures. Russians publicly are stressing stability. Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister (through translator): We are doing everything to ensure that this plant is safe and for the IAEA mission there to carry out all its plans. Lisa Desjardins: After assessing the threat, the IAEA says a team will stay there, in hopes of demilitarizing the plant and avoiding a wide-scale tragedy.For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Lisa Desjardins. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Sep 01, 2022 By — Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins Lisa Desjardins is a correspondent for PBS News Hour, where she covers news from the U.S. Capitol while also traveling across the country to report on how decisions in Washington affect people where they live and work. @LisaDNews By — Cai Pigliucci Cai Pigliucci